The topic of regional public transport is receiving a lot of commentary including\u00a0nostalgic wishes\u00a0and\u00a0challenges on why can\u2019t we have passenger rail, as well as\u00a0the very public disruptive campaign of\u00a0Restore Passenger Rail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In my view there is a lot of emotion, especially when coupled with climate change concerns, and some of the benefits claimed are not realistic in terms of emissions reductions or achievable timeframes. I responded at length on my blog,\u00a0Inter-Region Travel Options in NZ,\u00a0but there are some key things to consider when discussing regional travel.<\/p>\n
There is consensus that the rail system has been run down and asset-stripped, as mentioned in\u00a0\u2018Just how hopeless is KiwiRail?\u2019\u00a0Long distance passenger rail is relying on old rolling stock pulled by diesel locomotives from an earlier era. One upgrade has finally been announced, with\u00a0funding for new passenger trains being celebrated by Greater Wellington and Horizons.\u00a0Hopefully these will come in just in time to replace the worn out 1970s equipment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The topic of regional public transport is receiving a lot of commentary including\u00a0nostalgic wishes\u00a0and\u00a0challenges on why can\u2019t we have passenger rail, as well a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}