Posts by BenWilson
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So when you've done everything you can (at great expense to ratepayers/taxpayers) to encourage people onto public transport and yet still they won't budge from their cars, what options are left? Random Slapping?
I think I get you now. You think it's futile? I don't think so. Definitely more people need to get into buses and trains so more facilities for those things will be needed. And more needs to go to the roads too, which can be developed at the same time. If train-lines are being built then the roads are getting major works anyway.
I'd love it if there was a good cycle lane all the way to the city and through it. And bus lanes to make using the bus fast. And lots of express buses using the motorway, where I am most likely to be. And trains beside and under. It's all good and it all should be worked on.
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What would public transport be like if we each spent that sort of money on it?
Heaps better. And cars will be heaps better by then too, so I'll have one of those thanks. Then it will be all round choice, rather than not particularly choice if you're a commuter, and heaps worse for everyone else.
I don't see the big cars vs public transport dichotomy. It can be both. It should be both. It will be both.
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Mmmm; my road, Ben you must be a very important person.
I'd call it our road if you weren't so bitter on it.
It may seem farcical, but if drivers won't get out of their cars and ride buses - what options are left?
There are so many it's farcical. The public/private transport possibilities are huge.
*More roads, and train lines
*More bus, bike, carpooling and taxi lanes
*More actual buses on more routes going more frequently to more places
*People living closer to their work
*Work being closer to where people live
*More park & ride facilities
*More ferries
*More flexible working hoursNotice how everything I think of is "more". Not "Hey let's screw up the existing transport options, forcing people to accept worse quality transport, so that they just have to eat it, then brag that we've solved problems rather than created them".
Who else enjoyed the infinite jest of Ben accusing others of being mean spirited?
All the other mean spirited people. I'm not about stuffing up your options, why are you about stuffing up mine?
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Ever noticed the self satisfied smile on cyclists passing all the traffic banked up - that's me (or was before I had to tvl 20km out of town each day).
Does it look something like the grimace most people get when exercising when they could be sitting around listening to music? Yup, I noticed it. I see a similar look on cyclists standing at the lights in the pouring rain trying to keep their laptop dry, or the wry smile of the cyclist employee who just realized they left their memory stick at home. Or lying on the footpath clutching their broken bones. I've had that look on my face a few times courtesy of the glorious bicycle.
But again, it's choice if you ride your bike, one less car in the parking spaces in town. All power to you. Good luck finding that massive following, I ain't seen a hint of it yet.
And dude, I like gardening. Put that in your 3/5. However, one more dude thinking a 3/5 is choice is one more dude keeping the suburbs affordable, so cheers all round, until you kill my road. Then you're just being mean spirited, and fully deserve to have Auckland raining on your parade.
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Agree with all of that except the don't build more roads bit. That may achieve the challenge I set you of making public transport faster than a car, but only because it deliberately sets out to stuff cars up. Until Auckland gets much more massive, I can bet you that the car is still going to get there fastest for any fairly calculated trip. It will absolutely certainly get you there in the greatest comfort and carrying the bigger load.
I just don't believe that all the single occupancy cars that I see out and about invariably contain people who are either unable to car pool and/or have an undertaking of such importance that it requires the most expedient mode of transport all the time.
Probably not, but they can, so why shouldn't they? A lot of people value their time more highly than you, perhaps? Probably people who work hard in the city making a lot of money, so their spare time is not great, so why not spend some of those bucks getting some of their time back?
Sure, if you can't afford it, catch the bus. I think buses are great and there should be more of them. And more bus lanes. Anything to get people off the road and make it faster for me. But don't go deliberately ruining the roads! That's backwards thinking.
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Cleaner cars? Fine. More efficient cars? Excellent. More styly, reliable, powerful, gadget-filled cars? Even better.
No cars? Yeah, right.
If public transport doesn’t work, then figure out how to make it work ! Don’t trot out the same string of rubbish supporting the belief that it can’t ‘cos it’s Auckland.
How about you figure it out? I'll be interested in your solution to how you can get public transport to be as fast and convenient as an automobile. Seriously.
As for the commuting problem, I have the same solution as Russell, working from home. But I don't see the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the city as "sad and self serving" or polluting bastards, just because they haven't been able to organize their lives the way I do, and insist on travelling hundreds of kilometers every week just to get to work.
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And the foxy ladies would pull their skirts up just a little bit higher ...
...where they belong. Praise be the mighty auto.
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The bus is a huge source of creative inspiration for me.
I feel that way about the car. The fear of death stills the mind from the irrelevances of life.
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Which reminds me - why do those people who sit up front and talk out loud to the driver always have such chronic speech impediments?
Cause if they sat further back the driver either wouldn't hear or understand them?
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Actually, I'm reliably told that the Foundation for the Blind is really quite anti them for this reason. (cue image of blind person stepping out on a quiet street and taking a Prius in the side at 40kmh)
Yup, it's something I noticed about driving a loud muscle car. I never had even the slightest whiff of anyone stepping/cycling in front of me. Children would look up from the ball they were chasing. Dogs would veer back to the footpath. Cyclists would pull over.
As for getting a Prius, I've had my eye on the second hand market for about 5 years and they've never even looked like entering the price range I find acceptable. If it's about saving money, the Prius won't, unless you're the kind of person who wastes a lot of money on cars in the first place. Good on you, I'll buy it from you in 5 years for a reasonable price. Or not.
I can't get into the carbon guilt thing. There is no such thing as a reasonable footprint, just an affordable one. I have no problem with the true costs being passed on by way of various carbon taxes, but I'm still going to rip around in a muscle car, until it becomes prohibitively expensive. Because I like to. It's something I enjoy doing. Sitting on a stink bus or waiting 50 years for a train line to be built is cool. I wish everyone else would, so that I can use the roads we already have, which we always had as long as I've been alive, using the incredible invention known as the automobile.
Until gas costs $10 a litre it's going to be heaps cheaper to use the car for most things I do, and it will always be more convenient for them. There never will be any kind of public transport that can get me from Avondale to Downtown Auckland in 10 minutes without walking or getting wet, carrying a big load, including an infant child, listening to my music and in a comfortable and spacious seat, eating something, smoking something, farting with impunity, changing my mind with impunity about where I'm going, talking on the cellphone as loud as I like, dropping patches, fishtails and donuts, and all for a few grand. Never, never, ever. You'd have to talk yourself into how cool being in a bus is with an incredibly persuasive voice, because the simple evidence of your senses is ample argument against. They suck. I used to have to catch 2 to get to school for years and years and it fucken sucked balls. I got a car as soon as I could and I've never looked back.
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