Be the Difference eNewsletter #10 October 2009
Try the new journey planner and you may find your car stays at home more often. In the news this quarter is a series of articles on transport options. Transport in the Wellington region is about more than just cars, buses, trains and ferries. It’s actually about getting to places cheaply, easily and comfortably, and reducing congestion and emissions. So give some of these new transport choices a go. Who knows? it may change the way you and your family travel forever.
Spring into action
Try the cycling & walking journey planner
Now there is an online way to plan a cycling or walking journey in the Wellington region. Just type in your starting point and destination and let technology do the rest. Wellington company ProjectX Technology developed the website in association with Greater Wellington’s Sustainable Transport team. As well as telling you how to get to places and how long the trip will take, the journey planner has a range of other fun features. It will show you how hilly your trip will be, how many calories you are likely to burn, what parts of the route have street lighting, and where you will find drinking fountains, toilet stops, and seats for resting and relaxing along the way.
Perhaps you want to make a diversion along the way? The software can incorporate this, highlight the new route, and give you detailed new directions. If it’s not possible to walk or cycle for your whole trip, you can plan to travel a leg of your journey by public transport. Go to Metlink or use the public transit function in Google Maps. Remember to add the city name as well as the street names to your search as this enables the public transport option.
The cycling and walking journey planner covers the entire greater Wellington region so you can use it to explore areas that are not so familiar to you. With summer on our doorstep, there’s no better time to get online and plan your next outdoor adventure.
Email us your feedback on the cycling and walking journey planner.
Let’s Carpool
Carpooling - the convenient way to travel to and from work in the Wellington region. Just register online and the web software will find carpooling matches for you. It’s that easy!
Watch how it works on this video.
If you drive to work, carpooling is a great way to reduce your fuel and running costs, and enjoy a more sociable commute. Over 800 commuters have already registered with Let’s Carpool.
To increase your enjoyment of carpooling you can customise your registration with your preferences. Seek out carpool buddies with the same taste in music or carpool only with people from your place of work, or who are the same gender as you. If you drop off children on the way to work or would prefer to carpool just once or twice a week, you can display this information to other people looking for a carpool match.
School Travel Plans
The School Travel Plan programme liberates parents from driving their kids to school. What’s more, the children make new friends, meet THEIR parents, the cat down the road, and get to stretch their legs on the way to school.
Twenty six schools across the region have signed up to the programme. They have been assigned a coordinator who will help them look at children’s needs on the journey to school. Parents, teachers and children work together on their travel plan so that children can bring themselves to school safely and easily. Whether they are walking, cycling, skateboarding or catching the bus or train, an appropriate plan can be developed. The benefits are endless. It can increase a child’s health and fitness; give them more independence and confidence; reduce congestion at the school gate and reduce CO2 emissions from cars.
Next bus? Relax, just txt
Whiling away the hours waiting on a draughty platform for a train is a thing of the past now that you can get train and bus times on your mobile phone. Just text the four digit bus stop number to BUS (287) and you will receive a text with the departure times of the next three buses from that stop. It couldn’t be easier and you can time your arrival at the stop to meet the timetabled bus.
For train departure times text the first four letters of the station you’re catching the train from, and the first four letters of your destination station, to TRN (876). For example, for travel from Wellington to Johnsonville text WELL JOHN to TRN (876). All messages cost 20 cents.
Learn more about getting timetable info by text from the Metlink website at txtBUS and txtTRAIN.
What is Greater Wellington doing?
Greater Wellington implemented its own travel plan in 2007. This encourages staff to choose between a variety of transport options while at work including forgoing travel and using tele and video conferencing instead. Public transport tickets are available for staff business travel and the vehicle fleet has been audited to identify potential savings in fuel, CO2 emissions and financial costs.
Greater Wellington staff are also encouraged to think about how they travel to and from work. Staff have signed up to Let's Carpool, and everyone who walks, cycles, carpools or catches public transport has an emergency ride home deal. Plus the organisation has a flexible working policy, cycle storage space and showers.
Did you know?
“A safe street is one that tells a rich story about its past, its context and the future hopes of its residents” (Hans Monderman)
There are lots of ways to cross an intersection. If you are on foot you may use a zebra crossing. Overseas, people walk on pelicans, pandas and other animal crossings and in Lower Hutt they are trialling a puffin crossing. In a car you may wait for a green light or observe the relevant road rule.
Some streets and intersections around the world are becoming shared spaces. These have pedestrians, vehicles and even cafe tables and fountains sharing the same space without traditional road markings, kerbs, signs or signals. Traffic flow improves, accident rates go down and people enjoy walking across the space too. See how it works with these two videos: Introduction to shared space one and two.