Emerging Planners Congress Speaker
Axel Downard-Wilke is a Director of ViaStrada Ltd., a transport planning and engineering consultancy in Christchurch. Based in Golden Bay, Axel holds an ME (Civil) from Canterbury University and has been active as a transportation engineer and planner in New Zealand since 1998.
Through commercial courses and University lectures, Axel has taught planning and design for cycling and walking, intersection design, economic assessment, and intersection modelling. He has been involved in the development or review of cycling strategies and facilities for many TLAs (territorial local authorities). He has an interest in urban transport planning issues including parking management and public transport.
Axel was the technical advisor to the Ministry of Economic Development for the $50m NZ Cycle Trail project (2009–12), including the development of the NZ Cycle Trail Design Guide (ongoing). He was a member of the Transport Agency-commissioned Cycling Safety Panel who released the report “Safer Journeys for People who Cycle” in December 2014. He was the ViaStrada team leader for updating cycling planning and design guidance for the Transport Agency in support of the Urban Cycleways Programme; the resulting Cycling Network Guidance (CNG) was published in July 2016.
Axel has peer reviewed many research projects relevant to cycle facilities, carried out independent research and been involved in several trials for cycle facilities. He is a regular presenter at conferences and has given some 80 presentations (including keynotes) and winning best paper or best presentation awards.
Presenting:
This presentation will explore why a densification of our cities is so important for reducing transport emissions. The National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) is coming and there is cross-party support for it. But what support do these initiatives require from the transport sector? What transport planning measures need to be put in place to make the NPS-UD a success? And how will that impact on our emissions profile?
