Rachel Kohan, is a transport engineer and transport planner in the past. Recently, just before the lock down, she went to a transport conference in New Zealand a great opportunity for her personal development but also for the profession in what they are looking at and how we are addressing an even defining the problem. Rachel spoke to us from her home office.

Issues she covered with timings in the interview included:

1. The nature of the Transport Group Conference in New Zealand (0:55)

2. The Key Note Speech that made “Equality and Equity” a pivotal point in transport planning from the Hon Julie Anne Genter Associate Minister for Transport (1:14)

3. Designing a transport systems, not just for the long commute, or a single trip, but for the multi-purpose trip that happened throughout the day because generally they're done by different demographics and different types of people. (2:14)

4. Building infrastructure or creating a transport system to enable people to thrive, not just to build big projects. (2:40)

5. As a young person what her approach is to car ownership and usage. (3:30)

6. How people respond to an environment – David Sim from Gehl (4:38)

7. You do not necessarily need big expensive projects for people to engage. Examples include: pavement types; raised platforms for pedestrians to cross; gardens; separated cycle lanes; traffic signals that favour pedestrians. (6:33)

8. Tactical urbanism: low cost, temporary changes are made to the built environment, to improve safety and energise the environment space. It’s a way of trialling some ideas without investing large sums of money into it. (6:58)

9. A great aspect of the conference was that it had a session of walking through the streets. (9:03)

10. Transport impacts of the 2011 earthquake. The decline of the city centre (10:01)

11. Cycling around Christchurch (11:35)