Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The current system of directly electing mayors is mostly just a contest to see who's the biggest and loudest dickhead.
We do get to vote for a bunch of other things at the same time. I think I'd also prefer to directly vote for the mayor than to have them chosen by a party. It would be excellent if the choice was a run-off thing, though, so that vote splitting just never comes into it.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Was it the same local body election where the Left vote in Eden-Albert ended up getting cannibalised?
I couldn't fathom it either of the times it happened.
You don't have to like the outcome of any election, but it would be really sweet not to belittle anyone who at least got off their arse long enough to post back their ballot.
Voting badly is worse than not voting at all, in my honest opinion. Of course everyone has the right to do it. But that's not the same as it being the right thing to do.
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I never thought Auckland would be nuts enough to vote in John Banks. So I give up on guessing what's going to happen in the supercity race, for which we have sample data of 1 point at the moment. Minto would be a big improvement on John Banks, who Auckland elected twice. Politics is so weird I wouldn't be surprised if Kim Dotcom is one day elected mayor. The Mad Butcher could probably pull it off with only a month's notice.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Matthew Poole,
There were some really out-there choices considered for the initial scoping, including personal transport pods, so you can't accuse the CCFAS of being too narrow or flawed in its considerations.
Eric even mentioned Personal Rapid Transport in his post, which are the pods. In an ironic twist, even if we decided to give PRT a go, it would itself be massively improved by a city rail loop. It would give three more extremely popular destinations to the pods, and a way for them to exit the city without holding everything up.
But they're still a dream anyway. The biggest one in the world has 72 vehicles on it. Neat idea, but something to trial on a town like Morgantown, population 29,000, not a city the size of Auckland. I notice that even in Morgantown, during peak hours, it basically becomes a regular train service, running on timetables. Because that is more efficient, as has been known since trains were invented. It's not like one couldn't have made a small train 100 years ago, but the obvious trouble of having thousands of trains getting in each other's way on the rails was clearly analogous in London to the very problem they were trying to solve, thousands of people with carts getting in each other's way trying to get into the city every morning. The only really cunning invention they needed to improve on the idea of a big train with a massive passenger payload was the escalator, a fantastic, brilliant idea for getting massive numbers of people out of an underground station.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Eric Dutton,
In five years, everyone will claim that they always said it was a good idea.
Perhaps it's more of a Shelbyville idea.
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Hard News: Illegal Tender, in reply to Strypey,
Besides, these are the people who, without prohibition, would be growing their own, instead of paying for it, but they're stuck in the city looking for a job, so they have to buy it.
I think poor people who like dope would grow it, for sure. But so would anyone else who likes it, if there was no reason not to. It's easy to grow. So the price would struggle to be above the cost of similar volumes of leafy plant material in the supermarket. In other words, cannabis would cost as much as cabbage. It would barely be worth cultivating for sale, except on a massive scale.
I'd expect more to be smoked. But it wouldn't be a "sky's the limit" thing. Most people who like dope already smoke as much of it as they want, because it's not very expensive, considering how strong it is. Alcohol is more expensive, for a similar length of intoxication, but not everyone is a boozer.
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
I'd probably agree with Matthew's guess, on the whole, but note that the margin of error in such a prediction could be +- decades.
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Predicting anything related to technology 30 years into the future is optimistic. Something that changes the entire dynamic of driving could have considerably faster adoption than just the latest minor conveniences in the next iteration of the BMW. I have never purchased a new car, but a car that could drive itself might be worth making an exception for, not least because I would save a fortune on parking it.
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Paying for this plan is going to be objectionable to a majority of people in Auckland, because it is a useless plan for most of us most of the time. It is a plan that is designed to spend money on services that are NOT "convenient, quick, reliable, comfortable and affordable public transport options" for a majority of Auckland. Can you see this point?
I can see it without agreeing with it. You don't or won't acknowledge that if you take pressure off the roads that the public transport (and every other kind of transport too) on the roads gets better. It doesn't matter that most people don't work in the CBD. It's still the transport bottleneck, and that cascades all the way back out into the suburbs. It's getting steadily worse, no matter how many suburban motorway improvements you make. As it chokes, the city sprawls, and the transport problem gets worse and worse, because the distances increase.
Yes, if CRL is put in, it will disproportionately improve the CBD. Obviously, since it will be in the CBD. Just as the huge tunnel being built under Oakley Creek disproportionately improves the suburbs surrounding that location. I'm a big beneficiary of it. But it also takes pressure off the central motorway junction, diverting significant traffic from west to south via an alternate route. So it has a much wider justification. The CRL is like that, but in spades, because every passenger using it is not on the roads at all.
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Actually, Angus, it’s a practical impossibility to run trains west-east without the CRL. The switching is already possible through the Parnell yards to have Western Line trains go out east (and vice-versa) instead of through Britomart, but since they’ve already spent nine minutes travelling from Newmarket to the waterfront why not just go to Britomart and turn around?
Angus can speak for himself, but I presumed he actually meant west-south, since south in Auckland is mostly to the east. I'm still inclined to think of Remuera, Greenlane, Ellerslie and Penrose as East Auckland. But if he genuinely meant that we can use the western line which goes through Glenn Innes, then you are dead right, it makes no sense to have that as a route at the moment. But I don't think even a west-south route is needed. You can always change at Newmarket, and it's highly competitive with the bus routes in terms of time, but cheaper, and IMHO, nicer. I could take my bike on that route, if conditions got too crappy for me to want to come home on the bike.
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