iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

We'll have to tap the sign again. Most of these arterials are 20.1m wide (for some unfathomable reason, those arterials aren't wider than the smallest residential streets, which also tend to be 20.1 m) Basically, if you try to fit in everything, it gets really tight.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

And look, this bit of single family zoning doesn’t look like much, but it is more than a km wide. Apartments built on the far side will have no easy access on foot to the city centre. It will act as a hard boundary on where high density development will not suck.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

The 1970s oil shock wasn’t something that came and went. It was a transition: from cheap oil to unpredictably more expensive oil. Cheap oil kinda came back in the 1990, maybe that is why that decade is remembered as good times.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

It is often said that, for transport planning, car pooling is a very dead horse and we should stop beating it. However: what do we spot on our mode share pie chart? “Car passenger”, a slice almost half as large as the public transport slice. That isn't large but it is also not insignificant.

New Zealand Census 2023, Auckland city bounding box, excluding 'did not work'

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Here we go poisoning the well for higher density development for another generation. Having a school of 900 pupils between a not yet finished road and a soon to be one-laned road is completely nuts. And yeah you can go bicycles bla bla but don't forget 5 year olds have to make it there.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

@nerdland.be als je compact een camera achter zo een bijenhotel wil hangen en je wil meer afstand, kan je de lens zijdelings monteren met een spiegel op een hoek van 45°.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Imagine how much more appealing electric cars would have been 20 years ago. We would still have been able to make them without giant touch screens, without the threat of OTA updates taking away features, without subscriptions, and all the other trappings of this past decade that ruin products.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

This time on the Wrong Side of My Car: Let’s create urban villages, North Shore edition. Takapuna *should be* in the lead. But it is crippled by its insistence of keeping parking lots in the most awkward positions. wrongsideofmycar.blogspot.com/2026/03/lets...

wrongsideofmycar.blogspot.com

Let’s create urban villages, North Shore edition

So, time for the North shore edition. I’ve written about a few opportunities before, and unfortunately here as well, during the life time o...

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Fun fact: Birkenhead, Verrans Corner, and the entire stretch of road in between have a higher elevation than the top of the harbour bridge arch.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Today, on the Wrong Side of My Car: Let’s Create an Urban Lane. Who is better at getting it done? Auckland Council, or private businesses? wrongsideofmycar.blogspot.com/2026/02/lets...

wrongsideofmycar.blogspot.com

Let’s create urban villages, city centre edition

I have written before about the weird, lumpy population density of Auckland City . This is still the case, here is a similar map, from Cens...

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

From thespinoff.co.nz/society/23-0... This is one of those things that is obvious once it is spelled out. I would love architects and developers to take note. I strongly suspect so-called “ugly” buildings are ugly, because it is aggressively obvious that nobody cared about their exteriors.

thespinoff.co.nz

Brighter isn’t always better: How lighting plays a crucial role in making cities feel safe

Good lighting is the difference between a public space you want to be in, and one you avoid.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Why not put a golf course right next to a rapid transit, and put the new town centre all the way out in Albany? That decision did not age super well. Can we turn this area into ‘town centre’ though?

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Neighbourhood of Smales Farm station. Google Maps, and Auckland Council GeoMaps. Notice anything missing on the latter?

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

The lane next to Nelson Street, with the Sugartree apartment complex on the left. Google Streetview, 2019 and 2022. Spot the difference.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

A few more random vistas from the area around Birkenhead. (1) spot the top of the Sky Tower, from Verran Road.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

A commute in Auckland, in pictures. I noticed the rollback of the speed limit changes in Auckland is now underway. The street to our local school has been reverted to 50km/h.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Look at this motorway gantry sign: you can now answer two questions about our traffic rules: - left hand traffic or right hand traffic? - keep [left/right] unless passing, or pick any lane?

Gantry is over the roadway on the left hand side. LANE ENDS above the leftmost lane. The next two lanes continue ahead.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

New blog post, wherein we wonder if you can be both an urbanist and a parent. Is that possible, or do you have to choose? (and yes, we’re stretching the definition of ‘suitable for kids’ quite a bit here) wrongsideofmycar.blogspot.com/2025/04/city...

Affordable. Suitable for kids. Suitable for urbanists. Pick two.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

“21th day of railway strikes this year [in Belgium]” It is April. That is on average more than one day per week. www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/20...

vrt.be

21e stakingsdag van het jaar bij het spoor gestart: 7 op de 10 IC-treinen rijden

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

I think this video by @nerd4cities.bsky.social captures pretty well the vibes in Auckland… somewhere around 2017. We used to have a certain level of forward momentum. Better things to look forward to. How times change.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Some say it is difficult to still expand our motorway network, but in reality we are leaving an entire foreshore on the table. (now is the chance, the wider area is in such steep decline it is actually losing population)

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Is it just me or are we just hideously bad at traffic light phasing? Case in point: what is the use of 60 second green phases for Victoria Street here? There's room for, what, 8 cars to queue between there and Queen Street? So, everyone else has to wait another 40 seconds to see nothing moving.

Intersection of High Street, Lorne Street and Victoria Street

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

The “Individuals data” from the 2023 census got released a while ago, and that always means it is time to render a bunch of maps again. First: population. I kind of arbitrarily cropped to the area ranging from Papakura to Albany and Long Bay. Population here grew by almost 6% between 2028 and 2023.

Ratio of usually resident population count and land area, 2018. SA2 units.

Data: Census 2023, Stats NZ. Creative Commons 4.0 International Licence. Road data: © OpenStreetMap contributors

Ratio of usually resident population count and land area, 2023. SA2 units.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Planning officer: Does this development fit into the existing context? MEANWHILE IN BELGIUM:

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

So let’s say, I am spending $10,000 per year on a car. And then I’m not. But I still need to get to places. OK, so now we’re regularly taking the bus. −$1,000 for me, and for the Significant Other. Kaching. Kaching.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Libertarianism: Expectation: respect personal freedom Actually: respect personal freedom, but only for people who agree with the Chosen Ones.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

That is the 200m or so dead end here: You just know the kind of circus you get if dozens of people try to drive there at once. Another thing schools should do is encourage people to pick up their kids a few minutes after bell time instead of all stampeding at 3pm sharp. Or FFS at least ALLOW it.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

New Auckland convention centre build. Instead of just tearing down this old building, we kept the outer wall standing. Because, heritage protection. So. If we like these kind of building facades in cities, why are we no longer able to build them? We're still building plenty of 3 storey buildings.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

One experience available on our public transport network is a tiki tour around Smales Farm. This view is just over a kilometre wide. The 856 timetable provides 9 minutes to get through.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Wondering if a traffic engineer can cobble together a roundabout with some temporary barriers and the existing traffic islands at Verrans Corner.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

This is true, and overseas this is simply called “road works”. It is common to see works to rip up an old worn out road deck, then to see big diggers and sewer pipes, and then see an improved design getting rebuilt.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Wait did Thomas Pueyo just write that San Fransisco is permitting 150 units per year? Damn.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

People often think of public transport reliability in terms of buses / trains showing up or not. Or, showing up within X minutes of the advertised time. And while this affects reliability, there is a much more common source of unreliability. The time table itself. More specifically, headways.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

If you're looking for possible reasons why our fertility rate is cratering, it is quite instructive to follow the discussion around school lunches in New Zealand. “Hey do you want kids? It is great! And oh congratulations you're now also an outgroup.”

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Maybe we should do an "apartments in the city centre are Death On A Stick" Tracker? Based on a few KPIs. We can count it down to zero as things improve. ☠ Nicholas Street still looks like this. And Vogel Lane. Like, why. WHY. ☠ Hobson Street still configured mainly as motorway on ramp

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

There is a lack of upsides to apartment living in Auckland. Weird thing #1 we experienced back when we were living there, was the lack of public transport options. For anything. Newmarket. Drive. Dominion Road. Drive. Mount Albert. Grafton. Wynyard Quarter. Drive Drive Drive.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Incidentally, In the "build apartments away from arterials" department, Northcote is a big win. Maybe not in the mixed use department, but I think that is difficult to achieve before people actually move in.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Bluesky deserves bonus points for having BS as initials.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

A Home Owners Association seems like an adaptation to a society where people only ever experience other people in their city as 'nuisance'. (or, at least, a society where a lot of people live in a relatively small area, but the concept of a community no longer exists)

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Someone ought to have some think about bus connections on Fanshawe Street when coming into the city. It always involves those weird random walks to one of those other random bus stops in the area. And then, the gods toss a coin to see if that other bus will actually stop there.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Juxtaposition: we have a playground, but with nothing else around it.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

The taboo on charging for on-street parking endures everywhere. Street parking is a classic "freeloading on the commons" problem. But with cars involved, everyone just forgets how to deal with freeloading problems.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

I think we can get glimpses of how city streets are meant to work on things that aren't streets, but sneakily still work as a streets. Two examples are shopping malls, and the driveways on campings.

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Roeland @roelandschks.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

What was living in a city like in 1969? I have no idea. But one of those quintessential Urbanist Twitter diagrams is the one with the lines, from Donald Appleyard's paper, from 1969. And euhh… … … “Where people gather” — on the street? Please tell me more.

That diagram on the left of this post: Home territory.

Citation: Appleyard, D., 1969. “The Environmental Quality of City Streets: The Residents’ Viewpoint.” Journal of the American Planning Association, 35, 84-101.

that diagram on the right: social interactions: where people have friends, and where people gather (on the street).

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