Public Address - Island Life (Home)

Still not over it | Sep 03, 2008 09:16

Auckland is not a city that cares much for cyclists.

If you drive a black, shining SUV that looks - to the jaundiced eye - like some SS staff car, you may lumber about this sprawling city without let or hinderance.

You may, at some future point, be spending fifty dollars each week to drive it on roads yet to be built, but rest assured: your needs will never be taken lightly, your expectations will be respected.

Auckland is not a city that cares much for cyclists. There are cycle lanes being created, and more to come, but stand that work up against the road construction for the trucks and cars, and the effort looks just plain miserly.

Cycle Action Auckland have been exhorting the city councils of the region to give Transit their endorsement for a cycle and walking lane for the harbour bridge to coincide with the retrofitting of the decaying clip-ons.

They estimated it could be done for 5 million; more likely figures of 28 to 40 million have since been suggested. Whichever of those figures might be most accurate, they are each of them less than the Transit budget for cycling. To be sure, it would soak up much of the annual allowance. And so Auckland City Council's officials have looked at this figure, and looked at the likely number of users, and judged that notional figure to be small, and said: "no".

Talk about a failure of vision. The more a council prattles on about 'creating a vibrant city', the more you can be sure their vision is monochrome.

Auckland is manifestly not a city that cares much for cyclists. Not like Paris. Not like Amsterdam. Even LA seems to care more.

Never mind the conservative projections. What if you built it and they came? They came to the Northern busway in numbers not foreseen. They are using the trains in numbers unforeseen.

We are making ourselves familiar with the concept of petrol poverty, and yet the Auckland City Council cannot foresee a transformed city in which many more people use cycles to get about. If you lived in Northcote, or Birkenhead, or Takapuna and you had the option of cycling across the harbour bridge, would you really not give it some thought? According to the Auckland City Council officials you would not. I say bullshit. I live in Devonport, and I'd do it, and I'll find you plenty more who'd say the same. Make a harbour bridge linch pin, and you'll create the impetus for many more connecting cycleways.

If you could walk from one side of the Auckland harbour bridge to the other, would you not ever take your family on the walk some sunny Sunday? If you were a runner, would you never work the bridge into your training route? According to the Auckland City Council officials you would not.

The fact that, of the billions spent each year by Transit, such a small proportion is set aside for cycle projects is just, as my daughter and her friends like to say, wrong.

Auckland is not a city that cares much for cyclists, and my guess this morning would be that among the cyclists, the feeling is mutual.

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More billboards | Sep 03, 2008 07:32

More after the break. Thank you for your contributions.

Paul Campbell wrote of the billboards that they evoked a sense of the haiku form. Feel free to compose your own.

At five, plus seven, plus five, syllables, you are obliged to be concise, but in the political context of one-page policy statements, that really seems about right, don't you think?

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Serving suggestion only | Sep 02, 2008 08:02

Click the pic to see more, punters. And here.

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Cruel and kind of, like, random. | Sep 01, 2008 07:51

When the media says "jump", I ask how high?

When the media tells me this is the day for Random Acts of Kindness®, I say: Yes. And how might I put a pretty ribbon on it?

The pretty ribbon I have chosen is this: I will not settle for the casual, easy option of warm fleeting hugs with strangers and the feeding of parking meters. I am going to put myself out. I am going to be hard on some people I do not know.

It may be a truism that you must be cruel to be kind, but that does not mean that it is not true.

I have already penned a sensitive letter to Mr Cameron Slater explaining some of the fundamental tenets of Freudian psychology. It is written in small words. Using a steady hand, it draws an Identikit picture of the sexual gargoyle that appears to be responsible for the cry for help that is his 'blog'.

I am going to send Mr Gerry Brownlee a calculator and a packet of AA Energiser batteries.

I have mashed up twenty YouTube minutes of the oratory of B Obama and J Key and will be emailing copies to Mr Kevin Taylor and Ms Nicola Willis.

I have compiled a mix tape of tolerable pop music which I will be sending to the managers of Ms Delta Goodrem and Ms Avril Lavigne.

I will be sending a CD of whale songs and some aromatic candles to Sir Brian Lochore, endorsed with the message, "love, Colin".

It is always so hard to choose the right thing for Russell Crowe.

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