News

Standards New Zealand has completed a review of the New Zealand Standard for Land development and subdivision engineering, NZS 4404:2004. The Standard covers earthworks, roads, drainage, water supply, services, and landscaping, and is a guide to good practice. It sets out design objectives to be achieved and specifications that can be used as a means to comply with those objectives. For further information and assistance, contact Lisa Williams or Jeanette Ward.

ViaStrada has begun a programme of professional development with Christchurch City Council's graduate civil engineers. Under the programme, the engineers work for six weeks with ViaStrada, as part of their general experience preparing for IPENZ certification as chartered professional engineers. Within the council, they will work in a variety of fields including traffic engineering, transportation planning, civil engineering, roading, drainage and structural design. ViaStrada is the first consultancy to be used by CCC in this fashion.

At the 2010 Walking and Cycling Awards, Whakatane's District Council was awarded the ViaStrada Best Practice Walking Facility award, for its Warren Cole Walk and Cycleway. The 2.1 km all weather facilty links the Whatakane River Bridge to the Whakatane Gardens and CBD.

Other Golden Foot award winners are identified on the Living Streets Aotearoa website.

The world's largest cycling conference, Velo-City, was held in Copenhagen, Denmark from 22 to 25 June 2010. The conference, attended by ViaStrada director Andrew Macbeth, was attended by over 1,000 people from 60 countries.

When a city has many pedestrians and cyclists, you know it's a civilised place. Not only does Copenhagen boast one of the highest cycling mode shares (37% of work and school trips are by bike), more than half of its cyclists (55%) are female. A high level of women and girls cycling is a good indicator of high-quality cycling facilities and urban design.

ViaStrada is proud to support the 2010 Golden Foot (walking) awards and Cycle Friendly Awards. Best practice (organisations and facilities) should be celebrated and emulated! Nominations for the walking awards close soon...

At three years of age, ViaStrada is now a significant part of the traffic engineering and planning landscape, particularly in Christchurch and Nelson, but also in other parts of New Zealand. We have developed a vision for ViaStrada, as part of our business planning: To be the best traffic engineering and planning consultancy in New Zealand. Read more about our vision, purpose and values.

The 2010 conference of the New Zealand Planning Institute was held in Christchurch during April. ViaStrada sponsored the conference by offering guided cycle tours for conference attendees. The tours focused on the land use and transport planning points of interest along a scenic circuit including Hagley Park, Mona Vale and the Cultural Precinct. Both planning and traffic engineering/transport planning staff were involved in each tour. Some 60 conference attendees took up the offer, and four groups enjoyed an outing during best autumn weather.

The 2010 Transportation Conference was held in Christchurch from 14 to 17 March. It was a great event, from a Tug Boat ride on Lyttelton Harbour, a fabulous conference dinner, to a good networking opportunity and excellent continuing professional development by listening to good presentations.

ViaStrada contributed to the happenings by presenting three papers or technical notes.

Sue McAuley of our Nelson office has accepted a full time position at Nelson City Council as their Senior Transport Engineer, starting 21 April. The Nelson office will continue to provide the full range of traffic services, and we have appointed Christchurch-based staff member Rhys Chesterman to provide traffic engineering services for the top of the south region operating between the Nelson and Christchurch offices as required.

With senior council positions in Nelson rarely available, Sue saw this as an opportunity to apply her full range of skills back in a familiar local body environment. We wish Sue all the best, and look forward to maintaining our relationship with her in a different capacity.

Megan Fowler left ViaStrada in March 2010 to explore new opportunities in France. She worked on all manner of projects, from policy to practice, in land use and especially transportation.

Bon chance, Megan!

For assistance on projects undertaken by Megan or any other related enquiries, please contact one of our traffic directors: Axel Wilke or Warren Lloyd.