Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Gareth Ward,
I don’t follow sorry Ben – are we saying the negotiation is valid but they haven’t done a good job of it? How do we know?
Well, you do have a point. Most of the deals Key does are secret, so it's too early to say if it's been done poorly yet. I'm not hopeful, though.
And personally I have zero interest in my Government entering the aluminium smelting industry.
That very much depends on the price. Any company threatening to mothball its operations is depressing the value of those operations. It could be a very sharp deal. Being so, and Rio being a sharp operator, the threat is not that real. Any negotiator worth a small ingot of aluminium should know that.
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Gareth Ward,
They would be negligent if they didn’t…
Of course. But the Government is not powerless before such threats. They have a huge power and resources at the negotiating table. It would be equally negligent for them not to use those. It's not like the smelter becomes a vacant lot if Rio Tinto pulls the pin. The infrastructure and the people are all still there, and Rio would most likely not shut the whole thing down out of spite and refuse to sell any of it, taking a huge loss just to fuck the NZ government over. Not least because it is within the power of a government to compel a sale, given sufficient justification.
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Bart Janssen,
this is about as far from pure market forces as you can get.
If the government were a big business that owned Meridian, a very viable option here would simply be shrugging at Tiwai Point, hoping they do decide to leave, and then buying the place on the cheap, thus controlling the ability to turn electricity into aluminium ingots to sell on the world market, giving the perfect synergy with their excess capacity. Since the government does, in fact, intend to make a bunch of capital by selling off Mighty River, they have the money to do this right there. I would probably even approve of the sale if this were the purpose, bringing back under Kiwi ownership a very significant industry.
The mere existence of this as a negotiating card would mean Rio wouldn't bother trying to hardball, and would sit on their already sweet deal and keep quiet. You'd think our PM would have the nous to drive the bargain like this. But, as Bart says, this isn't pure market forces, this is corporate welfare we're subsidizing here, and our PM is a big fan of that.
It amazes me that he's such a weak negotiator, given his history. It's like he is deliberately running the country to lose every deal. I'm not cynical enough to think this is deliberate. I see it as more likely that he is blinded by ideology into self-hamstrung stupidity.
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Hard News: Neither fish nor fowl, in reply to Russell Brown,
Exactly. The law asks cyclists to embrace unacceptable risk at that intersection.
Most of Symonds St is not cycle friendly (unless you break the rules), and the changes needed to make it more friendly are pretty minimal. Simply acknowledging that the bus lanes are also bike lanes would go a long way. Having a bikes-only signal about 5 seconds before the pedestrian crossings would mean that bikes would separate out from other traffic. These changes would simply acknowledge that cyclists already do this stuff anyway.
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Worth noting, btw, that the Newton crossing can be avoided completely by using the underpass. If going into the city, you'd turn hard right at the lights, following the path under the bridge. It adds to the climb, but it does mean you don't have to wait for the lights. If coming out of the city, you turn at the second ramp. Again, the climb is a bit more, but there's no wait. Personally, on the way in, I'd use the lights as a nice rest after the stiff climb up the on-ramp. On the way home, though, it's much less obvious what's better. I'm usually rested from the long downhill just before, and hitting the second ramp at speed means you get a fair way up it before the climb is stiff, and then there's mostly downhill until you get to the bottom of Kingsland.
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Hard News: Neither fish nor fowl, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
So just getting on to the n/w cycleway from the Ponsonby side requires you to either turn right across traffic with no lights or cycling straight across to the Newton side before going across at the lights.
OK, so you were talking about coming from Ponsonby. Yes, it’s not pretty. When I say a “confident cyclist” should be the only one to try this, I mean they should do what I do, which is to take the entire turning lane, forcing cars behind to wait, just like a car would if it was waiting to turn onto the on-ramp. This requires a high level of confidence in your basic right to take a lane as the occasion demands. If you don’t, you risk impatient cars behind you trying to turn, and the nightmare scenario that an oncoming vehicle might swerve to avoid such an idiot, straight into you as the softest choice between 1. Into the side of a moving car or truck, 2. Into the hard steel barrier, 3 into a low kerb and a soft and possibly unseen cyclist. In fact, even if they didn’t swerve at all, but simply collided with the idiot, the angle would probably deflect them into you.
This said, I’ve never been so much as tooted at, because my ability to get across the road is actually slightly higher than a car’s, and I’m veering off immediately. I’m usually faster than a car over the first 5 meters from a standing stop. I wonder if some of this is because of the recent law change on turning vehicles. In the past, cars turning right onto the ramp had right of way over left turning cars. So they would interrupt a flow of left turning cars to get in. No way would I dare to try that on the bike*, even though I’d technically have right of way. Now, this is not an issue. The right turners have to wait. They know they have to wait. So they don’t get bitter on me…I think.
*ETA In fact, it might even have been technically illegal anyway, since the bike was not turning onto the on-ramp. It would thus have been attempting to turn across traffic that was going straight ahead. ie the bike ramp and the on-ramp could be considered to be 2 different intersections.
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Hard News: Neither fish nor fowl, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
Pretty much all crossings over the NW motorway that I can think of (Newton Rd, Motat and Pt Chev) are just complete disasters for all traffic
What's your gripe with the Newton one? I agree in the other two cases, that the very design means that breaking the technical law is virtually accepted as how it must be done. Do you mean the crossing at the lights, or the entry to the cycleway coming down Newton Rd from Ponsonby (that is for confident cyclists only, I'd agree, indeed I think most cyclists wouldn't even think to use it at all).
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Hard News: Neither fish nor fowl, in reply to Martin Roberts,
As a driver of several thousand passes through that exact intersection, I'd say the presence of the pedestrian crossing with no sight line is enough to slow most drivers down. Bikes are actually more visible than pedestrians in that circumstance. I don't think I've ever had a situation where cars didn't stop for me.
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Hard News: Neither fish nor fowl, in reply to Martin Roberts,
Has there been an increase recently in cycling through pedestrian light signals around Auckland?
It feels like there has to me. I frequently do Symonds St down to the University, and the crossing at the end of K-Rd is one where I almost never see a cyclist stop and wait for the traffic, when there's a nice long pedestrian phase just before the green light. I don't wait, myself, because I consider it safer not to wait. Riding down the road with no cars on it, and more to the point, no buses, is way, way less nerve wracking than that horrible conflicted decision of whether to stick to the bus lane, despite no clear markings that bikes can use it, or the center lane, where you stand a good chance of being simultaneously under-and-overtaken by buses on both sides (this has happened to me several times). Fuck that, I will just take the fine if a cop ever decides to bust me for slipping through the pedestrian signal and then bombing the bus lane.
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Hard News: Neither fish nor fowl, in reply to Russell Brown,
And that’s just stupid riding. I wasn’t joking about eyeballing the traffic coming up that off-ramp. I don’t go unless I’m confident the driver has seen me and is giving way.
I cross this spot nearly every time I use the cycleway. About one in ten cars doesn't give way. Most people see you cruising up and looking up to them, and they just slow down as if you were a pedestrian. Never had the slightest grumpy look from a driver. The only real danger is the driver who isn't looking - they could be distracted for any number of reasons. These people are every bit as dangerous to pedestrians as riders, which is why pedestrians should follow the same "don't die" rule that cyclists do.
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