Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Music: 2017 – this is not a list, in reply to Sacha,
Replaying on TV1 at 8.30 tonight (Mon 18th).
Nice!
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Hard News: The hard road to a…, in reply to oga,
I am in that FB thread and I still think that design is ridiculous. Having the bikes do a dog leg behind the angle parking forces them to slow down, negotiate the angles around the cars, risk car dooring from people parking in that narrow half park visible in the picture, or cars that have parked too deep into the angle parking, blocking the cycle path.
Someone in the thread makes a good point to the effect that maybe even cyclists, as well as drivers, should have to slow down in a complicated area with multiple users coming and going. I don't think slowing down is necessarily a problem, and I've ridden the paths and they're fine really. The main problem is cars parking over them – which will hopefully be, er, curbed when the green surface and some more physical separation goes in. But those are also likely to be straightened out as part of the review.
I haven’t personally seen these changes in the area, but my suggestion would be to remove the on-street parking completely on one side of the road and put in a two-way cycle lane with little street dividers to stop cars from parking in it. If the road is wide enough, put angle parking on the other side.
AT would be buying a massive fight by removing that much parking. That was what the whole fuss was about before the Occupiers started declaring the cycleways were "unsafe" etc.
If it wasn’t for the way people use Richmond Rd and Garnet Rd as major thoroughfares, then the idea of changing the Richmond Rd shops to mixed use like in Fort Street could be a good idea, but I can’t see people going for that because of their hard-on to get wherever as fast as possible.
Shared space - yeah, I've thought about that too. Make everyone really slow down.
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For my sins, I've continued to participate in Facebook discussions about all this.
And I'm constantly struck by the fact that the protesters don't have a single actual idea about how to change the cycleway design. When I asked where they think the cycleway should go instead, one said "cyclists want it on the road" – okay, cool, if you're fine with losing all the angle parking, which you're not.
There's a real mob mentality going on. It's trivially easy to throw shit at AT – quite a lot harder to say what you'd do different.
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There have been quite a few claims made around AT’s agreement with the local board on reviewing the West Lynn and Westmere cycleways. It’s worthwhile reading AT’s update to see what work will continue before and during the review.
The Occupy Garnet Road people have had this info for a little while, but typically, have chosen to make wild claims about their supposed success in stopping all cycleway construction in Auckland.
Waitemata Local Board chair Pippa Coom has a useful blog post on what it means – including, most notably, new and better consultation practices.
I must say I’m not so impressed with her WLB colleague Rob Thomas, who seems to me to have been showboating on the issue. This was a whole board action, not Rob saving the world on his own. I would note that he’s been cagey on the details on Facebook.
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I think this might be my favourite pic of the year: kids crossing the mud to get to and from the composting toilets on Saturday morning at Splore.
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Hard News: The hard road to a…, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
I do wonder how much of what is going on is budget related. Hard to tell if the variations in cycleway approaches are AT “trying different things” or being forced into taking shortcuts because of budget restrictions.
I gather that was a significant factor at West Lynn.
And yet, as I noted in the post, there’s an argument they’re trying to do too much at Karangahape Road. After assuring retailers they wouldn’t be moving services, it appears they’re doing that. So every power pole and pipe gets moved and the footpath gets dug up for who knows how long. I’m a bit torn over it, really – on one hand, we have a depressing history of half-arsed public works, on the other, doing the big kahuna in this case is extraordinarily disruptive. And it's not just some shops – it's the culture of the place.
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My friend Georgia Barber's brilliant wee dog Max (in Nelson, which is a town of wee dogs).
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Grey Lynn Park Festival. Police patrol, journalists yawn and people queue for ages for a pic with the new Prime Minister. For a fun game, see how many DPS staffers you can spot.
