Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Tom Semmens,
But hang on, how does an elected representative verify what his/her highly paid, experten officials are telling them? isn’t that what you have the bloody officials for?
Oh, ask questions and read papers? You really don’t get to have it both ways, Tom. I guess it’s easy to blame the officials who can’t (and shouldn’t be able to) turn around and tell elected councillors they’re either incompetent, stupid or liars.
I'm hoping someone at The Herald already has OIA requests drafted for the raw reports from Veolia and Auckland Transport. I don't think they're going to reflect well on anyone.
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Brown showed measure and leadership in his response. It’s a pity those qualities are not more widely shared at the moment.
Before the ritual McCully thrashing begins, I have to agree with that but would suggest Brown should also be DM'ing Mike Lee. While it may be amusing watching him and McCully having a dick waving contest (if that's your thing), I don't think its at all helpful.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Sacha,
I’m reasonably confident that the transport system could have coped with either getting 60,000 people to and from Kingsland or getting 200,000 people to and from the city centre.
Well, yes and no. It would have been a lot easier if 1) a lot of people were willing to hang out at Eden Park all day and/or 2) the opening ceremonies had been held on Saturday and a fairly substantial bus fleet dedicated to school runs would have been free(-ish).
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Hard News: Just don't call it "Party Central", in reply to Sacha,
And from people determined to get to the bloody game if only they could get off the train.
I guess we should just be thankful that nobody was injured, or killed, because their "determination" took the form of a basic rail safety fail.
All around it is a massive fail which undermines the future (the public/ having no confidence) in Public Transport.
Public Transport in Auckland needs to go back into Public ownership.
With no respect whatsoever, Dexter, perhaps the next time some fuckwit triggers a emergency stop or decides to go walkabout in a working rail yard they should be prosecuted. I know the media isn't interested in reporting this, but I'm reliably informed there were people who were in distress on halted trains who notified train staff, were promptly (and safely) attended to. It's not pleasant being on a crowded, stuffy train or bus, especially when it's been delayed. But having seen the trauma train drivers go through after a work-related fatality, I'm rather short of sympathy for people who were so damn irresponsible.
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Hard News: Just don't call it "Party Central", in reply to Sacha,
Before even a hasty review is done, both Brown and Key seem to have decided to pin this on the train operator.
And why wouldn't they: To be perfectly cynical, a weekend of "OMFG, train-fail ruined our big night" headlines are a big, easy target. No politician has ever lost a poll point sledging the evil foreign corporation.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Sacha,
Well, that was rather more useful than Mike Lee in Te Herald this morning:
Auckland Council transport chairman Mike Lee said Veolia had to take a large share of the blame.
"Everything we have worked for in the last five years ... we were let down - it was a disgrace."
Tomorrow, Mayor Brown is to receive a review of the rail problems from Auckland Transport chairman Mark Ford and chief executive David Warburton.
Mr Lee has called a special meeting today to discuss Friday's events.
A council source told the Herald that "Veolia hasn't stepped up to the mark as well as it could have done", saying the train operator had previous performance issues, including at U2's concert last November when a passenger pushed a stop button and stranded several trains near Ellerslie station.
Mr Lee said it was time Veolia started earning its management fee of about $35 million within total annual rail funding of $85 million.
For pretty obvious reasons, nobody at Veolia is going to say this on the record, but there are plenty of transport operators in Auckland who feel exactly the same about Auckland Transport. As someone said to me, (not my Dave, BTW) Auckland Transport would be much easier to deal with if there fewer political hacks and more people who have a reality-based understanding of how a public transport network operates, and what can actually be done with current resources.
I get the politics - no politician is ever going to lose support (or column inches) crapping on the evil multinational corporation. But I think Mike Lee and Mark Ford have some questions of their own to answer.
Hell, I think various AT staff clearing their fraking voicemail and replying to e-mails in a timely manner would be a start.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I’m not blaming the local staff, it’s probably impossible to run a commuter metro for short term corporate profit in the way they’ve been tasked to and offer reasonable service.
Hey, Rich, you try dealing with twice as many people as your best reality-based estimate. Perhaps one potentially useful thing to come out Len’s inquiry will be some clear statements of simple physical and resource limitations in play. Veolia and Auckland Transport are just going to have to HTFU and accept they're going to wear a lot of unfair criticism (and various political axes being ground) along with all the shit that can totally fairly be laid at their feet. But I'm cautiously optimistic that it won't just be an exercise in arse-covering and buck-passing.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Sacha,
Frontline staff did brilliantly on the night with what they had, but notwithstanding Craig’s hurt feelings the train operators continued a long trend of not communicating adequately with their customers.
Thanks for that, Sacha. [REDACTED: Realised I've breeched the privacy of a third party.] I won't hold my breath waiting for anyone to give a shit (why start now?), but I understand some train staff have been communicating extremely clearly with Veolia and their union reps about being harassed and abused by customers last night. I don't give a shit how "frustrated" and "panicked" some people were about getting to a sodding football game, if some of the shit I've heard is even half-true we don't deserve nice things in this town.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Russell Brown,
Woah. I don’t think Jack was saying that.
No, you're probably right but the number of times I get accused of being a partisan sock puppet around these parts I just though I'd shut down that line of attack before it started. As I said, I'm not pretending every thing went perfectly and every FUBAR was unavoidable. That would be taking psychosis to a locked ward level, but I'm just hoping that the mooted inquiry isn't going to end up being an arse-covering witch hunt because I don't think Dave is the only person who would like to see some reality checks written in a public forum not even The Herald can distort or ignore.
Yes, it's a fucking pain in the arse being in a long line for a bus on a Friday afternoon. But, hey, are you really going to crap on bus companies for not having a lot of excess capability at a time they had other contractual obligations -- i.e. school runs and the thousands of other bus services serving the rest of the city? Really?
And, yes, while I'll happily concede that service delays were entirely newsworthy do you really think the headlines reflected an entirely appropriate response to fuckwits hitting an emergency stop. And, yes, I make no apologies for getting epically pissed off at the late news acting as if people walking on lines -- Epic RailSafetyFAIL 101! - was no big deal.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to recordari,
Anyway, you have more horses in this race, so I’ll leave it to the experts.
Excuse me? If by that you mean I do actually listen when my partner talks about the industry he’s worked in for over forty five years, yes I do. If you’re insinuating I’m being some kind of political hack – be a darling and shove off. I don't think anyone is pretending everything went off like fine Swiss clockwork, but it would be rather helpful if everyone took a deep breath and didn't fucking shit on the train operators for following basic safety protocols. When some frakwit hits an emergency button there are knock on effects throughout the network. And responding is just a little more complicated than taking the hand brake off on your car. Really.
There were reports of people being let off trains after the emergency button was pushed and walking along the tracks. Was that untrue also?
If they are accurate, and any train staffer allowed passengers to compromise their own safety and the integrity of the network then the people concerned should have their employment terminated with extreme prejudice. That said, I don’t know how you can physically restrain a large number of people determined to be idiots without creating more problems than you solve.
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