Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Policy, finally

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  • 81stcolumn,

    In the circumstances I might take that as a compliment not sure about Merc though.

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    I must admit that I was taken aback by Russell's claim that you can breathe by the LA freeway.

    I remember being quite struck by it. We were stationary on the freeway, and had the windows down, and it was okay. I wouldn't like to try that in Auckland.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • tim kong,

    There's an element of the ideal here - in that it would be great if we could all work, eat, commune, shop, exercise, play, learn, in our local area.

    "Local shop... for local people!"

    I teach in the Hutt, but live in Miramar. Wife works in Miramar. I love my job, but do wonder if my daily commute, thankfully against the majority of the traffic, is causing carbon destruction and the loss of any specific species in the Amazon.

    We've just bought a second car, and looked seriously at the Prius, from Clean Car Co that RB mentioned. Also looked at some of the diesel models. In the end though, went for the reliability of a 2004 Toyota Avensis - it matched our budget - and had a fuel use computer.

    Being able to actually monitor your fuel use, doesn't salve the concious - as much as make you aware of how you're driving - and check why you need too.

    As the summer term rolls in I'll go back to using the bus/train combo more - but it is more expensive - and adds another 90 minutes of travel to my day. (Assuming all elements are running on time) Benefits - a 20 minute snooze on the train each way, and a reason not to carry any books home to mark. :-)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 153 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    But if I were to take the bus (three buses, actually) to Newmarket on a Thursday, that would be at least another hour my boy was at home on his own.

    I was talking about this sort of situation with my dad earlier in the week. It seems to me that a lot of people would be quite happy to pay higher prices for petrol if it means they get to spend more time with their families.

    That's going to be a big obstacle to overcome to get people to use public transport over their cars.

    (Also, I see the swish new Link buses are on the roads. I think I might have to go for a ride.)

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • Neil Morrison,

    We use a car because it saves time but we make up for it by using public transport when ever we fly.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    re: LA air quality .... Ii think you guys are comparing apples and oranges .... LA has a horrible, barely manageable smog problem partly because of all the people living there and partly because of the geography - but the cars on the freeway make a lot less crap than the cars in NZ - there's just a hell of a lot more of them

    This means you can be sitting on the freeway in LA and not have some beatup old car in front of you pumping you full of fumes while you can in Auckland .... which is surrounded on 2 sides by the sea so that in general that crap doesn't stay around long term.

    I understand the argument that if you make people have clean cars the poor wont be able to afford them - it's the same argument that you can make against slavery - the CA law when first enacted limited the amount of money you could be forced to spend per checkup to mitigate problems - but now days grounds chronic smoke belchers much as we would a car with say bad brakes ... after all both are a risk to public safety

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    <quote> It seems to me that a lot of people would be quite happy to pay higher prices for petrol if it means they get to spend more time with their families.</qoute>

    Yeah I can empathise with that view. But at the risk of sounding really dull the radical argument is that the price just isn't high enough then. When it is, people will hopefully, demand better solutions and approach issues in a different way.

    How do we make fewer/shorter journeys that don't steal time from our lives and and how do we make time in transit more useful/less damaging ?

    How many more people could work from home if supported appropriately ? Where are the incentives to subsidise and support this kind of thinking ?

    There is a big debate to be had in this context about the sustainability of our commodity driven culture. The refinement and commodification of the car though admirable is unsustainable/risky given the number of people who are likely to want one/drive one in the future. Think about all those Chinese/Indian folk over the next 40 years.

    The very evolution of the internal combustion engine is a great example of how good human beings are at solving problems and refining solutions. That evolution only occurs when it becomes necessary/costly. The idealists argument here focusses on why aren't we making an alternative to the car necessary in the marketplaces of the world.

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    Ugh.... unedited preview brain fart alert....

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • Michael Fitzgerald,

    Stephen
    Oh dear, he prob didn't make it past too many winters then. Have they set up Wet Hostels yet?

    I've walked from Joe Bannanas Hostel (just out of Hollywood) to the movie park along an LA motorway. A bit of fun as the hills slipped and there was no footpath but I still maintain safer than the LA Taxi I took to Joe Bannanas.
    Met an old class mate in Hollywood who wouldn't say how he was supporting himself - I've always suspected gay porn.

    Since May 2007 • 631 posts Report Reply

  • daleaway,

    The two teachers - a young married couple - who rented a flat off me in Wellington, drove to the school each day. Four flat suburban blocks away. Four good legs between them. Neither was willing to give up their car, so they kept two cars for the purpose.

    I predicted a short marriage for those who are unwilling to share or compromise. I predict a short-lived planet for their tribe. Unfortunately, it's my planet too and we don't have a Plan(et) B.

    Since Jul 2007 • 198 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    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.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    No cars, not for a long while, fewer cars easier.

    i) Don't build more roads, wait for roads to get full.
    ii) Set up congestion zones.
    iii) More and multiple lanes given to PT exclusively.
    iV) Work to a two stop structure for PT timetabling.
    v) Light rail, crikey I'd even settle for trams and this is from a cyclist.
    vi) Fix the school run madness and don't let kids drive to school !.
    vii) Give a tax break to guys like yourself, Russ and many others who set up to work at home. Extend the tax breaks to those businesses that support you.
    viii) Free wireless zones on buses.
    ix) More flexible working hours for adults.
    x) Better internet infrastructure - online shopping conferencing etc.
    xi) Out of hours delivery services.
    xii) Integrated regional ticketing for existing services.
    xiii) Make it cheaper for people to relocate and at the same time narrow the perceived disparity between schools.
    xiv) Build proper cycle lanes and legislate to protect their use and those that use them.
    xv) Nuke all 4WD that park on the pavements because they are perceived to be too big for roadside parking - and while you are at it nuke the drivers too or at least send them to cities who have a better appreciation of what is possible because they have already done it.
    xvi) Remove traffic lights and prioritise pedestrians at crossings, make it illegal to stop on crossings, fix that bloomin' diamond nonsense at crossings it doesn't work any more because of the volume of traffic.

    xvii) Educate, educate, educate.

    I don't see the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the city as "sad and self serving" or polluting bastards

    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__. I include myself in this generalisation as well.

    From what I have read and see, in a race across London or New York you wouldn't bother taking the car any more, go figure.

    Yeah ! Jetpacks are the answer.....somebody shut me up please.....I'm getting embarrassed for myself

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    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.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Finn Goode,

    Sorry completely off topic but i had to share

    If you want to know what Gordon Copeland REALLY cares about watch the United Future party political broadcast from the 2005 election.

    "Child poverty in New Zealand is currently running at 20 percent... we have been involved in implementing the working for families package which is going to reduce that to a mere 4 percent" - Copeland

    i am definitely adding him to my list of despicable socialists trying to redistribute wealth from hard working kiwi's to those lazy unproductive children who add nothing to the economy.

    Mt Eden • Since Jun 2007 • 5 posts Report Reply

  • Michael Fitzgerald,

    "I'll be interested in your solution to how you can get public transport to be as fast and convenient as an automobile. "

    Ben an automobile can travel alot faster than it's allowed to by the various speed limits in place and the limits peak hours conjestion.

    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).

    Living 3/5 up in cities (& I say towns). Stop green field developments and start looking up. Not tower blocks of shoe boxes and infilled concrete slabs of the current urban cowboys (developers) but living spaces and communities in apartments. Thereby reducing the need to travel to work & if you still do light rail with govt subs. This of course would require a change of local body taxation from rates to a share of the general tax take.

    I have a plan for rural communities too - Villages. The idea is to build a community by bringing it closer together and not living on isolated farms. Can't do much about the high country - but that's being retired anyway.

    When I rule the world, certain ...

    Since May 2007 • 631 posts Report Reply

  • tim kong,

    daleaway,

    Not sure if it's aimed at me - story about the teachers. But I do choose to teach in Lower Hutt, because I believe in what I'm able to do there - and I believe I can make a small measure of a difference in my role as a teacher there.

    There are several schools in walking distance of my house - and yes I applied to several schools in my area, when I came out of teachers college. None of them got back to me.

    I use public transport sometimes - and I use the car sometimes.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 153 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    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.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    Mmmm; my road, Ben you must be a very important person.

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    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.

    Which, in a nutshell, explains exactly the thinking of our Transport Planners. It suits them to have Auckland dissected by only ome motorway -- the more congestion the better. But since that hasn't stopped enough people driving on the motorway they have now instituted 'ramp signals' ie traffic lights to stop you actually getting on the motorway:

    Waiting times for traffic queuing on Curran St signals averaged 2.8 minutes, and Transit had begun using the signals ... to tackle increasing congestion. Mr McCombs acknowledged that this compared with about 20 seconds spent by vehicles joining motorways without waiting for signals

    Which is why back on page two I came up with the idea of Random Slapping:

    On designated mornings Police should force drivers stuck in rush hour traffic to wind down their windows and receive an open handed slap to the face...

    It may seem farcical, but if drivers won't get out of their cars and ride buses - what options are left? And BTW, I'm not seriously suggesting it - I do so merely to point out the wooly thinking of these bureaucrats. And if you want more proof:

    Their solution was to hijack two of Queen Street's four vehicle lanes for buses only. This, they calculated, would speed bus passage between the new crossings by five minutes, thus cancelling out the [5 minute] delays caused by the new crossings.

    I suppose we could start our own bus service and let everyone ride cheaply (or free!). That's a novel idea - altho' Grandad tells me that last century the ARC did actually own their own bus company and did just that. Until the National Govt forced them to sell it to Stagecoach. And now Stagecoach receive bus subsidies from the ARC greater than the price they paid for those buses! Each year!

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • JLM,

    I have a plan for rural communities too - Villages. The idea is to build a community by bringing it closer together and not living on isolated farms.

    When a friend was showing me round in Nova Scotia some time ago, she pointed out the villages settled by the French - all the houses clustered together, from which the families would depart to work their fields - and those settled by the Scots - each house on its own farmland down a long lane.

    No prizes for inferring our dominant heritage when you look at the blight of lifestyle blocks.

    Judy Martin's southern sl… • Since Apr 2007 • 241 posts Report Reply

  • daleaway,

    No Tim, not aimed at you at all. I spoke of a couple who kept two cars to drive to their place of employment which was in the same street that they lived in. In Seatoun. It was walkable in six minutes. They were just selfish lazy sods with an undue sense of their own importance.

    But while we're on the subject of you, you say you choose to work in the Hutt - but from your description it sounds more as though you had the Hutt workplace wished upon you, and you choose to live in Miramar. To quote Spike Milligan: "South America? That's abroad, isn't it?" "That depends on where you are standing."

    Who else enjoyed the infinite jest of Ben accusing others of being mean spirited?

    Since Jul 2007 • 198 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    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 hours

    Notice 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?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • James,

    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.

    We each spend at least several $1000 a year on our cars. Many spend several tens of thousands, in depreciation alone. I see some cars round Wellington that cost half as much as my house!!

    What would public transport be like if we each spent that sort of money on it?

    New Zealand • Since Feb 2007 • 34 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    __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.[list examples]

    But that's not the point I was hoping to make Ben. You can provide endless options but people are still going to want to drive there in their own cars anyway. Witness daleaway's example of the couple who each took their own seperate cars to their same workplace at the end of their road.

    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?

    Will more money solve the problem?

    [ARC Chair Mike Lee] was bemoaning the fact that despite an 89 per cent increase in subsidies since 2004, from $45 million to $85.1 million, Auckland bus patronage had increased only 1.2 per cent - or within the statistical margin of error.

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    Driving a car in the in 07 is a bit like smoking in the 70's discuss.

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

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