Kia ora, here’s our weekly roundup for the week ending 23rd of July.
Puhinui Opening and bus changes
Tomorrow the awesome new Puhinui station is being shown off to the public with an open day from 11am to 3pm. This part of the rail network is closed over the weekend however and so the first passenger services will start using the station from Monday 26 July.
With Puhinui opening the Airport Link bus will shift to using the station and with it comes a couple of other bus changes such as the new frequent 36 route from Onehunga to Manukau via Mangere which starts on Sunday.
From adman to cycling advocate
Locky Docks from Big Street Bikers have been popping up around Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. One of the people behind it is Cleve Cameron spoke to Kim Hill about it in a fantastic interview where he talked about how went from advertising cars to trying to make our cities more bike friendly.
Cleve Cameron was a high-flying advertising creative until one day he realised he’d had enough. His passion to change behaviour remained, and he’s now channeling it into trying to reduce carbon emissions through transport – specifically, bicycles.
Cameron is a co-founder of Big Street Bikers – a company aiming to get New Zealanders out of their cars and onto two wheels. Big Street Bikers have been busy creating new electric infrastructure to make cycling easier for commuters. That’s where Locky Docks come in.
Launched nationally this week, Locky Docks are public bike locking stations which can be used to recharge e-bikes for free. It’s all part of a wider scheme to lower emissions, reduce congestion and make people feel better.
In over our heads…
Shocking footage continues to pour in from cities around the world inundated by extreme wet weather events. Walls of water, pushing through cities, floating cars along streets, and flooding into transit tunnels – are a sobering corollary to record wildfires elsewhere. A couple of threads from China capture the scale.
This video was shared on Weibo earlier tonight. pic.twitter.com/uPKVQZqWZz
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) July 20, 2021
Close to home, Westport is recovering from a devastating flood that has left up to a hundred homes uninhabitable. It’s gutting to learn that apparently this could have been largely avoided, or at least mitigated:
A $10 million flood protection scheme proposed for Westport would have prevented most of the devastation caused by the weekend’s massive flood, the West Coast Regional Council operations director says.
Randal Beal said the scheme involved extensive stopbanks and floodwalls – essentially ringfencing the town from the Buller and Orowaiti rivers – and would cost $10.2 million.
“It is designed for a one-in-a-hundred-year flood in the Buller, and whether it would have protected the town this time, the simple answer is yes, unless there was a flood bank failure,” he said.
One striking detail in the article is that the call not to proceed was made on the basis of public feedback:
Only 10.8 percent of respondents supported it; 24.6 percent preferred to do nothing about their town’s flood risk and 30 per cent had no opinion.
“It would have been an expense for ratepayers, certainly, and without a majority supporting it we couldn’t go ahead,” he said.
Westport’s population is around 5000. On the one hand, it’s a big project for a small ratepayer base. On the other hand, as the chair of the Westport 2100 Working Group Chris Coll said last year:
“This has become urgent… The river is our main worry in terms of what it can do. It’s a sleeping giant. It’s a monster when it gets going.”
Back in 2017, the Regional Council’s Deputy Chair encouraged locals to weigh in: “…sit down with a cuppa and take your time. It’s important we get this right for our future.” The feedback summary from that 2017 consultation doesn’t seem to be online. But if it’s the “Buller River Flood Consultation” mentioned in the minutes of this March 2017 council meeting , there were 203 submissions in total.
Some observations:
- Does it make sense to ask the general public to vote on things like life-saving flood protection?
- 203 voices is a tiny sample upon which to decide the future of a whole town, given over half of the respondents either didn’t have an opinion at all, or preferred to do nothing in the face of expert advice. (Did any children “have their say”?)
- If the same survey were taken today, would it have a different outcome?
- If the project seemed too expensive in 2017, how priceless does it look now?
Note: last year, the council applied for support for the flood protection scheme from the government’s Covid recovery fund for “shovel-ready” projects. Unfortunately, the bid was unsuccessful.
Latest Progress on the Glen Innes to Tamaki Drive Pathway
Here’s the latest video from the GI to Tamaki Drive pathway project, showing some cracking progress over the last three months.
Solarpunk cities
Following up on our recent post about the power of artists’ impressions here’s a fun inquiry into the appeal of “solarpunk” art when it comes to thinking about what makes cities great places to be.
Economics journalist Noah Smith starts with a much-shared image by anime artist Imperial Boy, and works his way towards a few conclusions. Content warning: contains great real life examples and delicious eye-candy!
…that’s really the secret of Imperial Boy’s magic. Not some biopunk science fiction that merges foliage and concrete, nor some cyberpunk construction method that creates buildings in improbable shapes. It’s just good urban design — something we could have right now if we wanted. Except that “if we wanted” actually means “if a huge set of institutional and cultural barriers to dense, walkable development and high-quality architecture didn’t exist”, which of course they do.
So how do we, as a society, make ourselves want dense, walkable, well-planned cities and high-quality urban architecture? I think we need to draw more pictures.
…and climate fiction
On the theme of art that asks questions about the future, we loved this short story by New Zealand writer Melanie Harding-Shaw, published earlier this month on US speculative-fiction website Strange Horizons. It’s a quick read, and a twisty and disturbingly convincing version of a future Aotearoa with a transport subplot. No spoilers, just go and read it!
Metaphor corner
In 1871, a woman from Quebec hired a hearse with the sole intention of riding around town smoking in the coffin-bed while enjoying the view. pic.twitter.com/HBp9E9kqQF
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) July 16, 2021
Accidentally Wes Anderson
The story of Canfranc international railway station, in a village high in the mountains on the French-Spanish border. is one of “vainglorious ambition and abject failure, of incompetence and corruption, of intrigue, smuggling and a century-long run of bad luck.” The spectacular edifice became “an involuntary railway mausoleum of enormous sentimental and patrimonial value” that’s found a new lease on life as a hotel.
Cyclists and walkers really do spend more than drivers
Add this one to the basket of facts to wave around a your local business association meeting: a study from Berlin found that retailers consistently overestimate the number of their customers who arrive by car. The study found that retailers had a bias towards their own mode of travel. Those who drove to their place of work were more likely to believe that more of their customers were drivers as well.
“…The car is less relevant for local business than is often assumed in policy processes. Pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders are the important customer groups for local business in an urban context.” says IASS researcher Dirk von Schneidemesser.
https://twitter.com/grescoe/status/1417923098804953097?s=19
The emissions gender gap
The Guardian reports on another study that doesn’t surprise us much: Swedish research found that men cause about 16% more emissions than women do. Information was gathered based on what men and women spent their money on, and found that despite spending about the same amount of money across a range of categories, men’s spending resulted in higher emissions.
The biggest difference was men’s spending on petrol and diesel for their cars. The gender differences in emissions have been little studied, the researchers said, and should be recognised in action to beat the climate crisis.
And another interesting point from the article that you could miss on a quick skim read:
Previous research found that in families with one car, men used it more often to go to work with women more likely to use public transport.
Finally, some smaller bits
A great visualisation from AT on the impact of adding a protected bike lane along lower Hobson St as part of Project Wave
Check out cycle trips on Lower Hobson St before and after the introduction of the protected cycle way – Project WAVE! With a separate space for people on bikes, the road environment is a lot safer for everyone. Thanks everyone! #RideTheWAVE pic.twitter.com/F9v3VAZRtL
— Auckland Transport (@AklTransport) July 22, 2021
Auckland Transport have been installing an Innovating Streets project around the primary school near Matt and recently they’ve added the speed bumps as part of it. What’s interesting as you can see from the videos below is that the speed bump has done little to slow speeds down. Contrast that with the day before when the contractors had dug up the road prior to the installation which resulted in a dramatic difference in driver behaviour.
Update: speed bump now installed and having very little impact on vehicle speeds, cutting up the road was far more effective.
Additional note, goal of the project was to slow vehicles around a crossing (just behind shot) to a primary school. https://t.co/SycA4ilVcB pic.twitter.com/81baofS8Q5— Greater Auckland (@GreaterAKL) July 21, 2021
A word on the SUV debate.
https://twitter.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1418144901997289477
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Bizarre contrast there from AT showing off their new bike lane on one hand, on the other, round the corner cars are still parking in the 2 way bike lane because AT are too useless or intransigent to do anything to stop them
Their wardens are part of the lack of enforcement problem, I bumped into one walking past cars parked on the newly widened footpath in Emily Place and asked why they hadn’t been ticketing them – he went off on a rant about how this was yet another case of AT endlessly taking away parking as part of their crusade to force everyone to use bikes or buses – and where was everyone supposed to park?
Hardly gives much faith in the institution when even their enforcement officers spout the poor oppressed car narrative in response to a question about lack of enforcement.
Sounds like he should find another job…
It sounds like AT should help him find another job. If he is not aligned with the requirements of the job then his manager should be having a conversation with him.
‘If he is not aligned with the requirements of the job’
Sounds like he is perfectly alligned to AT strategy!
Also, Tuesday last week: a removals truck was parked in the far distance of that view, right on the footpath that must be a shared path at the end of the cyclelane in the view. So that as a cyclist I couldn’t go forwards from the cyclelane.
I stopped and chatted with the removals guy. He was moving an AT office (which I think had been for people overseeing Quay St, etc) down to a South Auckland location. He said AT had given the instruction to park there.
The project wave visualisation is great.
The most interesting part is the decrease in bikes / scooters using the footpath.
Confirms what I thought earlier, the best response to the complaints about scooters and bikes on the footpath is to build appropriate infrastructure.
Isn’t the after on the left showing use of the footpath despite there being a cycle lane? The right one doesn’t show the footpath.
Good question because – unusually – the before is on the right and the after is on the left. If you click on the photos you can see them fully, complete with dates, too.
Yeah, in the full photo on Twitter it’s clear that footpath cycling use has dropped considerably after installation
You’ve been caught out by a common issue with twitter embedding. It never shows the full size image. Click through to the post to see the full size of both.
Thanks. I see it now. I don’t use twitter. Could you imagine the trouble I could get myself in on that?
Lol. Quite. Why do you think I’m not on twitter?
I can imagine all 3 of us getting into a lot of trouble, which is why I gave twitter up years ago!
My plan is to wait until I am retired, then I can tell people what I really think. 🙂
On the Berlin survey. I thought I’d add this:
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2016/10/17/enhancing-karangahape-rd-consultation/
Seems a thing the world over, businesses not knowing their customers transport habits. K road businesses thinking 41% of people arrive by car, in reality 17% do.
I’ve been shopping on K Road for years – since I was a student at Auckland Uni – and never once have I been there in a car. Nor would I ever conceive of ever going by car as I just think of it as a place where you would be highly unlikely to ever find a car park. I’ve always assumed that the traffic is just like a sewer full of cars going somewhere else. To me, Karangahape Road is one of those entirely flat, pedestrian shopping experiences that Auckland does so well: gentle curves in the road pulling you onto the next corner, every inch filled with surprises. Lovely shopping street.
The Westport flooding is awful but taking the stance of “just build $10M stopbanks” is to misunderstand the local context. The town has been in slow decline for years, has a tiny ratings base and some of the cheapest housing in the country. You can’t make a case of “build the infrastructure now to support ongoing growth” because the growth isn’t there. That probably explains the lack of support for the proposal amongst locals.
It’s not even clear that stopbanks would solve the problem: The town is built on the floodplain of the second-highest volume river in the country and that river will go where it wants. Meanwhile sea levels are rising and already encroaching on other settlements in the same district like Granity: https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/91778352/climate-change-could-spell-extreme-poverty-in-coastal-nz-towns And the Alpine Fault isn’t that far away, so the Buller district has a lot of natural hazards to worry about mitigating, not just one.
I doubt it’s morally justifiable to decide to just clean up the mess each time, as it puts lives at risk, and probably leaves people in damaged and mouldy homes too. So we’re going to have to get better at decision-making on this stuff. We’ve got a lot of the country to adapt.
International work on adaptation for climate change shows that different approaches range from extremely expensive (for the reactive, business as usual approach) to economically productive (for a circular, green, skills-based proactive approach). So the questions are:
1/ Should the town be abandoned because there’s no economic way to protect it?
2/ If it’s to be protected, what’s the best way, socially, economically and technically?
3/ Who pays for the clean up or the protection?
4/ Can we improve the decision-making so it’s not about minimising rates in a head-in-the sand paradigm?
5/ Who gets to benefit by being upskilled in designing and constructing the adaptation works?
We don’t want to see insurance premiums going up across the board instead of localised to where risks aren’t being eliminated. Nor do we want to see taxpayers paying a higher amount for emergency services and emergency repairs and clean up. Nor large international companies being the ones that benefit from doing the repair work.
If the protection scheme is considered technically suitable, ratepayers can be required to fork out $2000 per household to provide protection. But ideally they’d keep that money within their community by being the people doing the work.
If the government is going to have to face the bill of reacting to emergency situations due to inaction, which costs more, they should instead be proactively deciding on retreat, or investing to prevent the damage – particularly if they can do so in a way to provide local jobs. It seems a perfect *kind* of job for the shovel-ready funding.
Thank you Heidi. I wonder if we expect too much stability from our rivers. If you think of our alluvial plains as being built up over many years by the interior mountains erosion, The level of the rivers bed is constantly rising e en at the river mouth and it is a lot to expect the river to remain in the one course form more than a century let alone several centuries. The Mataura and Wanganui rivers are good example of just how long you can expect a river to remain in the one course. Whether there are other ways of addressing the problem (such as dredging ). Eventually you need to consider retreat.
It would probably be better to spend the $10million lifting houses on wooden poles so the 100 year flood (every 8 years or so) sit underneath for a few days.
Yeah, I think the sponge city concept is definitely a good way forward in places where the force of the flood water is likely to be low and it’s just a matter of water levels.
I don’t know about other Councils, but I looked at the early stage of an elevated apartment block development proposal, near the Sunnyvale Train Station, with swamp landscaping, and it seemed that the risk was that the cost of providing the special reports that Council required, without any sort of assurance that it would get approval, along with some higher costs in the development, meant it was unlikely to be economically successful.
Granity is getting $3.6 million from NZ Upgrade for a seawall. Govt says it is to protects houses + road but the road is behind the houses (looks to be about 60 metres from the sea) and a local says it will only protect 5 houses.
WCRC chair is a climate denier and his dodgy statements were widely discussed during the last elections.
There are many low lying cities in the world. Some are slowly sinking, Jacarta, Houston, Dhaka, Venice, New Orleans, Bangkok, Shanghai. Some are already under sea level and doomed.
In NZ there are large areas of land that will be lost to sea level rise.
The cost of building kilometers of concrete walls to control the sea would be huge. The power of waves and surges of millions of tonnes of water in a storm can tear away the concrete foundations and wash away concrete quite easily.
JF, you are right. If cities and countries think that they can avoid the effects of climate change by building walls, stop banks etc there simply isn’t enough money. Germany and China are the most recent examples where even wealthy industrialised countries cannot protect themselves.
I wonder whether Auckland will see localised flooding once stormwater is prevented from entering our sewage system?
Preventing the stormwater from entering the sewage system is the right way to go, as you don’t want the stormwater to overflow with sewage in it. They should be separating more.
We’ll see plenty of localised flooding due to so much of our land being covered with roads and driveways. Continuing with building carparks at council facilities and stations is a flood risk, so is widening roadways into the grass verges. And of course, all the low density and poorly planned medium density housing – greenfields and brownfields alike.
Doing a bit of work on this atm – Council planners have a lot to answer for. Very disappointing. Must be frustrating for the hydrologists in there.
Apart from towns foolishly situating themselves next to fast-flowing river mouths (both Greymouth and Westport should probably have never been built in the first place), most of NZ is unlikely to flood as we are not a flat land. Auckland in particular is not a very flat place – the 50 volcanic lumps mean that the ground plain is nearly always tilted at an angle, and so water will run off quickly. So, I’m going to stick my head out and say that Auckland is not a flood risk.
Other cities built on flat edges of the land are the ones likely to flood, and indeed they do: Nelson, Marlborough, Napier, Christchurch: all built on flat floodplains and effectively just asking for trouble. I mean, Napier, for instance, has just built an entire new suburb in Te Awa which is below sea level, on land that is known to flood regularly over the past few decades – how stupid is that? And every single new house there is on a flat slab so it can’t be raised up on piles above the flood level. Foolishness.
But Auckland flooding? Never going to happen…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/galleries/auckland-flooding
I stand corrected.
That’s just nuts! Who blocked off the outlet?
https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/50768-nz-contours-topo-150k/
Auckland has huge swathes of flat land very close to sea level.
Hilly areas have a different problem, with heavy rainfall a lot of water will flow into low lying areas. I think that is part of the problem in New Lynn.
With the recent floods in Europe, some of the worst affected places were places along river valleys in hilly or mountainous areas.
Flooding in Auckland will only ever be localised, the main reason is there aren’t any large rivers flowing near Auckland.
Those speed bump clips make the solution obvious. Motorists find a dip more challenging than a hump so lets stop building humps and dig dips instead. They have the added advantage of filling when it rains slowing drivers further when they should be doing so naturally.
If it means we don’t have speed tables that grind your front splitter in a small city car while SUVs cruise care-free over them then sure, sign me up. Currently the urban environment encourages me to buy the biggest, plushest and hardest to control car I can afford, instead of a small runabout.
Totally, most utes/SUVs don’t even slow down. Would be good to have some London style chicane things, seem to work well and no possibility of someone tearing them up – often would actually do damage to speeding vans, etc.
https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@51.5409661,-0.1052502,3a,75y,89.54h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-J_j6mqtdoEJ7ala29s0aQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en-GB
These work so well, especially because they slow larger vehicles down a lot more than slower vehicles. They are really effective at discouraging rat running.
Is that centre part for emergencies only?
But yeah you’re not going to speed through those. Note the bollards.
Middle for emergencies and note the actual use of cameras. You will get pinged with a decent fine. On a side note I remember getting an 80 quid fine for being about 50cm over a yellow hatched intersection no stopping zone once. Not blocking anyone at all but it makes you obey and is a good rule. Here you’d just have people blocking all sorts of roads, turns and intersections. Some well placed cameras would surely pay for themselves quite quickly..
Emergencies and permitted service vehicles (usually rubbish only)
It’s also a good experience for cyclists with no judder bar. I think the van in that google image is actually stuck with traffic behind. Saw many long wheel based vans rip the sides of their vehicle from too fast/sloppy driving.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/investigation-underway-after-train-carriages-drift-apart-auckland-hamilton-service
I thought there might be some discussion about how the Te Huia train came apart on monday. I don’t know how it could come apart 10 mins into a journey, or perhaps something broke?
I’m not surprised it happened where it did. Between Papakura and the Drury motorway overbridge is a classic example of Kiwirail’s wonky track at it worst with a series of bumps that are actually quite disturbing for rail passengers. Carriages slamming together with an almight bang makes you wonder how long they can put up with this punishment before something breaks. Paerata is another blackspot.
Maybe it was a trial to make the service even more efficient? See: https://99percentinvisible.org/…/slip-coaches-back…/
And on Saturday for their first ever trip into the Strand the Te Huia was an Hour late on arrival as they were held up by a port shunt that had broken down North of Otahuhu .
And for AT they had no buses within sight of the station , even though there is a bus stop right out side of the door . The timetable on the pole showed buses on the Sat after 6pm and Mon to Fri and that was it .
And the other thing the helpful Girl who came up from Hamilton to set up signs only was able to open 1 of the gates and the other was still locked until a person from AT returned to open it , he left earlier after I asked if he was going to unlock them as the Te Huia was due to arrive and his answer was it only stopping at Papakura . It seems AT want nothing to do with except for collecting the Fares of the commuters .
I think point 4 in that Imperial Boy image: “varied architecture” is the most basic, and one of the hardest ones for us in NZ to figure out in our planning system at the moment.
So often, opposition to new buildings is that they’re “out of character” or “out of scale” with what’s there already there – and our character protections seem to want to keep neighborhoods looking uniform.
To me this is entirely backwards: an eclectic mixes of different sizes, styles, scales and forms of buildings is one of the things that brings vibrancy and interest to streets and neighborhoods. Even our character suburbs are often a mix of houses from different eras, like villas (1890s) and bungalows (1930s).
And rather than ruining a place, a massive tall building can help anchor a community and help orient people, like the apartments in New Lynn.
Yes varied architecture is one thing, and also making sure it has some details at various scale levels. Modern buildings often look great from a helicopter but on street level are just big featureless concrete boxes. There’s quite a few examples of that in the city centre (like the Sky City building or the Police station).
Yes, I agree.
Definitely agree with you there. This is actually something that I think Commercial Bay does really well. it feels like you are walking past 10-12 different buildings along Customs Street.
You’re saying the Cook St police station looks good from above?
“New study from #Berlin: shopkeepers estimate that 22% of their customers come by car. Real figure is 7%. (ie, 93% come by foot, transit, bicycle)”
And we have examples in NZ along a similar theme. Turnover in Fort St increased markedly when it became a shared street. AT’s survey of shopping in Milford showed that those arriving by public transport had a greater average spend than those arriving by car.
Our decisions about the way we configure our cities needs to be done on empirical research rather than anecdotal evidence.
If I look at the cars parked outside the dairy and fruit shop up the road, it would suggest that they are hugely successful businesses and that they need all the parking that AT can provide (if you subscribe to the model that one of AT’s functions is to provide cheap, or better still, free parking – the model they subscribe to.) The reality is that these vehicles are commuter parking for other businesses and are there all day every day.
I think it’s a sign of collective madness that in each individual case, we have to go through the argument again and again. Particularly with our tax- and rate-payer funded organisations continuing to misuse that money of ours in building more carparks.
Bloody annoyed about the new Motat carpark being built currently – a failure of governance and planning, all around. And meanwhile, not even a pedestrian crossing over Meola Rd. Shamefully keeping the kids in danger, and increasing that danger with more traffic turning movements.
Heidi, the current limited consultation model suits AT well. First, it keeps a huge number of people employed. A huge number employed means they need managers. The more reports that those managers have, the more they can claim to be paid. If another layer of management is required, then more pay rises. And for the ratepayers, all this to achieve very little.
It is hugely disappointing about the Motat car park. Just like more roads do, it will spawn more driving.
The really disappointing thing is when the Mayor says, we need government to make changes, so that the city can achieve significant emissions reductions. Bovine shit. Someone needs to put a copy of the C40 literature on his desk, so that Auckland can consider the changes of London, Paris, Milan and Vienna amongst many others.
I am about to submit on the Queen St proposal. I won’t be saying that planters are a great idea. I will be saying that cars on Queen St are just dumb. I drove down there last week. Maybe it took 10 minutes from Victoria St. It just clogs all the buses. If AC/AT are serious about reducing emissions (and they don’t seem to be, but let’s pretend they are) then here is the place to star,t because those who frequent this area are the best able to adapt due to the excellent public transport offering.
I wonder what the countries reaction will be ,when a major weather event hits a large metropolitan area,l think we have been lucky so far. We as a country, seem happy to take a science based approach to covid,but are happy to ignore it for climate change. Covid had the advantage of being a sledgehammer in your face,impossible to ignore. Maybe when a large portion of Wellington slumps into the Harbour,action will take place, all too little, too late
Go for a walk on the Eastern side of Puhinui road when you go to the station opening tomorrow to see the result of the tornado. The station had a narrow miss. If they had being half way through putting the long run on the roof it would have being dangerous.
Bryan R, that major weather event will have to hit an area where wealthy people live to make any difference.
You’ll need to pray for a tornado to rip through Remuera., taka . Convert some of those wealthy climate deniers into believers.
I guess there is also the ability to control your own destiny with Covid. With climate change NZ can’t control it alone.
Last Wednesday we had a heavy rainfall which put all road transport in a go slow mode and the train was cancelled or delayed. Cyclists are the one not affected by it. See this https://twitter.com/AlecTang_/status/1417756081065840647
This week, signs have gone up at all the bus stops on our local route (170) informing us that there will be timetable changes from Sunday. Given that this is a once an hour service, it is pretty important to know exactly what part of the hour we should be waiting for the bus. But the AT website, while repeating the news triumphantly (it is part of aligning the 170, 171 and 172 routes so there is at least one bus to / from Titirangi to New Lynn every 15 minutes, a long overdue improvement), does not have any information about the new timetable, just a reassurance that there will be no changes before 9.30 in the morning.
Well, that’s a relief then. I can head off to work on Monday at the usual time – but what is happening to my return journey?
That’s poor. There must be someone to elevate that to. Or maybe not?
Three diggers have taken up residence on Onehunga wharf and are now digging out the channel. The mud is being fed through some kind of plant before being trucked away. Probably to de water it. I cant think why maybe its getting too silted up even for the fishing boats that use the the wharf. Or will we see a sand harvesting operation with sand being dug from the harbour and transported by barge for processing on the wharf. That wouldn’t be such a bad idea as it would be close to were it would be used.
Looks nice that tey are making progress on the Cycle/walkiing track to Glen Innes however AT have ruled out cycling on Ash and Rata St’s.
What’s going on?
Ash Street and Rata Street are defined on AT’s Future Connect ‘Cycle and Micromobility network’ as major connections. This safety project has investigated the feasibility of providing a suitable protected cycling facility. Due to physical constraints along the corridor and issues with removing street trees and on-street parking, the separate cycle facility cannot be accommodated in this project
And once again Kiwirail manage to stuff up a high profile train trip, the inaugural Te Huia service to the Strand. Waiting for clearance then slow running through rail works is fine and understandable. Getting stuck at Otahuhu for nearly an hour because some freight shunt had broken down is not. And then holding Te Huia for 5 minutes + with a unit sitting on the other side of the platform. Guess what, the all stops virtually empty emu goes first leaving the packed Te Huia to stop start follow it. So that’s 1.5 hours Frankton to Papakura, then almost 2 hours Papakura to the Strand.
That’s terrible!! In the old days they’d just go around but now I suppose they’re not allowed to do that? Still other options to speed up that journey even with the “unforeseen” issues.
Heads need to roll.
“The gender emissions gap”
Smh
Nevermind that men are on average around 19% heavier than women (more weight more emissions). Nevermind that more men than women are pilots, train/truck/bus drivers, or that most plumbers, electricians, builders, farmers etc are men (the demands of the job requires more equipment) or that in general more women work from home or in an office.
What a ridiculous thing to post up.
Looking at the leukemia stats the other day, and realising how it’s another way that men’s health is impacted by taking more jobs with chemical exposure, I was wondering the same, Realist. But then a male in my household said, “Have you read the gender emissions gap research, though? There’s a lot in it, particularly about discretionary emissions use”… I hadn’t done… but I do suggest it is worth looking at.
And this is what the Puhinui Station looked like on Saturday’s open day after all the official clowns had left , plus Newshubs news item . And the Mayor was moaning he might miss His flight , so why doesn’t he leave home earlier like most normal people do ? . And there was a women at the of the item complaining about the lack of parking there . ;-