Speaker: Living under bridges
75 Responses
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I recommend reading the years of discussion about this project on Transportblog. Really doubt you’d be so worried about the few residents who put so much energy into opposing this when you see how they have behaved.
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It just seems all a bid upside down. If you want to drive to the Shore, it's free. If you want to cycle or walk, it costs money. And it's expected to generate extra traffic from people driving to one end of the bridge so they can cycle/walk across it.
"chunks of carbon fibre travelling at over 30km is a different thing altogether"
Speed limit? Traffic calming?
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... if its execution is flawed ...
This is the key point for me. The NIMBYs (and yes I will label them that) have argued that because of the possibility of flawed design then the project must be stopped.
They haven't engaged with design to make it a good design, nor have they considered that the folks designing it have a pretty good track record, nor have they seemed willing to compromise.
For them the only option has been opposition at all costs.
Of course, it needs careful design at each end. The way to get that is to participate not oppose.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I recommend reading the years of discussion about this project on Transportblog. Really doubt you’d be so worried about the few residents who put so much energy into opposing this when you see how they have behaved.
The leaders of the resistance made the residents hard to love, but I still think it’s reasonable to consider the interests of the small community at the base of the bridge.
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The undercroft is a pretty interesting place, all right. Your museum analogy is not far wrong. It’s like a cross between something from The Wire, and the Roman Forum, especially at night…
For answers to some of your other questions, it’s definitely worth reading the commissioners’ report, which addresses everything raised during the 5 day hearing, and imposes further conditions on the designers (above and beyond the conditions and changes they had already made to take into account residents’ concerns).
It’s probable that not every person will ever be completely satisfied, but it’s been gratifying to see how seriously the Northcote concerns have been taken at every step – contrasted, say, with how hard the residents of Waterview had to fight for mitigation of the effects of that motorway project, and how many dwellings were demolished there (some of those details here.)
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Also worth a read: the public enthusiasm for a bike/pedestrian crossing from nearly forty years ago, including a letter of support from the then Northcote Residents' Association...
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Speed limit?
Traffic calming?Load-bearing capacity?
'No Stopping For Selfies' signs? -
Totally agree that participation beats opposition hands down, and accept that some opposition has been annoyingly belligerent. I mean, bikes, right. What's to get?
But having scanned the decision and also the plan I'm not a lot clearer.
Participatory design requires those doing the designing informing those affected by it how it's going to work. It's not just opt in. Most local residents did not submit. That doesn't disqualify them.
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Jolisa, as always, that is just awesome. Those letters!
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Cycle Action Auckland put together a great post revisiting letters from residents written for PATH, the 1970s campaign for walk-and-cycle access across the bridge.
It includes this amazing message:
At present I cycle to work in the city twice a week via Greenhithe, a round trip of approx 80K taking approx 1 1/2 hours each way. I would do this more often but it is not possible due to the time factor etc. If I was able to use the bridge I would probably cycle one way across the harbour on say two working days per week and both ways on two days, travelling by other means on the fifth day to transport clothes etc. If bridge access is to be provided, it should be available 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
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Ooops. Snap!
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Jolisa, in reply to
Too good not to double-post :-) The comments below are gold, too, including the one from the writer of the first letter, who's still out there, still biking, still immortal.
On the ferry to Northcote on Friday we were accompanied by an older gent whose daily routine it is to bike from the shore around the harbour via Greenhithe, and then come home on the ferry using his Gold Card. Once a week or so, he meets his road buddies in Kumeu for a coffee, as well, which makes for a daily total of around 85km. Respect!!
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That takes "biking around the harbour" literally, in a rather impressive kinda way.
Sooo, does the Greenhite bridge require bikes to use the footpath?
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I agree with the idea of residents only car parks with the addition of some kind of solar powered or hay driven loop bus to drop off the slacker tourists who are too lazy to walk or cycle TO the cycle / walk way.
Probably if it hadn’t been given the blockbuster name and overhype the inevitable dystopian nay sayers would have stayed quietly under their little dark clouds.
Once the hoo ha has settled down it will be a good way of getting across the harbour, getting some exercise, some views and losing your hat.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
I still think it’s reasonable to consider the interests of the small community at the base of the bridge.
Absolutely. And nothing I've seen from the plans suggests that such consideration isn't happening.
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Here's as close as Streeview takes you.
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Speaking of unloveable opposition, Janette Miller's video response to the resource consent approval, in which she depicts Skypath as a potential "death trap" ...
This is a very strange video.
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Nearly as strange: Jo Holmes of the Len Brown Must Resign campaign also predicts death, among other things, as a result of the Skypath decision.
She lives on Waiheke.
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Jon Briggs, in reply to
Hi James,
There is a wide shared space for pedestrians and cyclists on the north side of the bridge.
I work in Takapuna and live in Mt Roskill and cycle home this way a couple of times a week. It is a pretty sweet ride. The old upper harbour highway approach to the bridge is a lovely wide road with no traffic since they built the motorway. On the other side you ride through hobsonville point then take back roads all the way through to royal road. It is not too easy to follow the first time you ride it, but the sequence of streets is:
Squadron
Buckley
Wiseley
Marina View
West Harbour
Moire
Royal -
Firmly taking off my bike helmet and putting on my cultural studies musings hat for a second...
They say it takes two traumas to make a trauma - that a major traumatic experience is only truly felt when a second one comes along to reawaken it.
I do sometimes wonder if the visceral strength of some of the opposition to Skypath (and that might include the video above) is a delayed reaction to What Motorways Hath Wrought on our lovely city in general, and what the bridge did to Northcote Point/Sulphur Bay/ St Mary's Bay/etc in particular.
It's as if the bridge has quietly become invisible and inaudible over the years, and Skypath has suddenly rendered it apparent again, in all its monstrous non-negotiability.
(Related, perhaps: over those decades, the gradual moving away of many locals at both ends of the bridge who fought really hard to unlock the full democratic benefit of the AHB connection for their neighbourhoods and for all Aucklanders?)
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Sacha, in reply to
Jo Holmes of the Len Brown Must Resign campaign
also local Actoid mouthpiece via ‘Auckland Ratepayers Alliance’ for the Taxpayers Onion.
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Mikaere Curtis, in reply to
This is a very strange video.
+1.
I love her self-confidence in the veracity of her arguments, especially the bit where she uses the Phnom Penh stampede as evidence that the Skypath is a nascent death trap. Because people taking to the Skypath for a view of the harbour and a 3 day water festival involving 4 million people are exactly the same.
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Is she using the patronage numbers for a day as a hourly figure? I can't see that attracting the 6000 per hour that she seems to be implying.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Because people taking to the Skypath for a view of the harbour and a 3 day water festival involving 4 million people are exactly the same.
psssh next thing you'll be using data like some radical scientist type :)
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