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Unlike my previous volumes, Waka Paddle to Gas Pedal and Gas Pedal to Back-Pedal, this third volume of transport history necessarily encompasses the history of more than just the city of Auckland but of the whole of New Zealand.

This volume does not pretend to include a complete list of individuals and entities that have comprised New Zealand’s Road Gang over the years. It is simply a selection of the more prominent and interesting of the many, who, from the late 1890s, sought to make a (mostly legitimate) living from New Zealand’s motor vehicle and road transport industry.

As with most occupations, the prime motivation of Road Gang members was simply to profit from their activities in order to feed their families and satisfy personal ambition. At the same time, their endeavours satisfied the needs of a motoring public conditioned by market forces and transport necessity to acquire their goods and services.

However, as this study illustrates, the supreme leaders of the Road Gang have always been, and will always be, the government of the day and local authorities. From the time that the first motor vehicle landed in New Zealand, the motorist has paid for every turn of the wheel by way of import duties, taxation, registration and licensing.

That’s why the building of more roads and not the provision of public transport continues to be a lucrative investment.

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Gas Pedal to Back-Pedal – The Second Century of Auckland Transport –

This Part Two of a planned trilogy builds on the founding and development of Auckland’s transport systems from 1940 to the present – describing how the motor vehicle evolved from a novelty and a nuisance of the 1920s to an indispensable utility that virtually replaced the city’s public transport services with chronic road congestion.

 This is a story of countless, costly transport studies and reports and why most of the advice generated was not acted upon. It is a tale of how the parochialism and fragmented vision of city leaders played into the hands of begrudging, purse-string-holding Governments of the day; of Governments all too willing to favour the laissez-faire principles of those tyre-and-tarmac entrepreneurs collectively known as the ‘Road Gang’ – those descendants of Auckland’s ‘limited circle’ and other ‘gentlemen of fortune’ who shaped the city’s early growth and who continue to dominate its future by way of land speculation and financial control.

It has been a long, overcrowded road since the concept and ambition of an Auckland underground railway was first proposed by Royal Engineers in 1860.

With the belated start of the ‘City Rail Link’, a happy ending is anticipated.

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Waka Paddle to Gas Pedal – The First Century of Auckland Transport – describes the evolution of Auckland’s transport systems in terms of the aspirations and activities of various businessmen, planners, engineers, and politicians and the ensuing success and failure of their enterprises between 1840 and 1940. The story tells of how national and local parochialism and the propensity for many Aucklanders to reap a harvest of capital gains by speculating in land have been responsible for the delay and failure of many transport initiatives. During the development of their various transport systems, there has been no lack of ambition expressed by Aucklanders struggling with the challenges of travelling and trading across their isthmus and beyond. Unfortunately for the present-day commuter and trader, and for reasons as diverse as the thousands of vehicles that now choke the City’s roads, precious few ambitions were realised. This is the story of those that succeeded, but mostly of those that failed, and how. The story provides some explanation to those thousands of motorists who now crawl, seemingly forever, along Auckland’s roads; those with plenty of time to ponder, ‘how did I get here?’