Transport resilience and earthquakes – lessons from Christchurch

How do people respond to dramatic changes in transport patterns? What can other communities learn from the transport effects of the Christchurch earthquakes?

Typically, transport patterns in a city only change gradually over time, as land use and population patterns evolve and new transport facilities are developed or modified. That altered dramatically in Christchurch following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. In a very short time, the city experienced rapid transformations in the shape of both the transport network and the surrounding land uses.

While that created significant problems for the provision of adequate transport options, it also allowed the opportunity to radically rethink the nature of how we get around the city in the future.

Glen gave a presentation at the 2018 IPWEA NZ Conference in Rotorua about transport lessons to be learned from the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes. The accompanying paper summarises some of the key post-quake transport changes in the city following the quakes and identifies a number of valuable lessons for other areas faced with similar disasters (not all of those lessons have to wait until a disaster strikes, either...).

The paper and presentation are available to view. The paper is an updated version of an earlier chapter written for the book Once in a lifetime: City-building after Disaster in Christchurch.