Posts by Sacha
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Minister McCully's official statement.
"Two areas of under-performance clearly require immediate attention. Auckland's public transport system failed to deliver to the required standard. In spite of reasonably successful trial events, there is no escaping the fact that last night's performance was short of the standard required. Urgent steps will now need to be taken to ensure that these matters are rectified before the next large Eden Park match next weekend,” he said.
"While Queens Wharf operations were highly successful, event arrangements for those in the Quay St area simply did not meet the needs of the extremely large crowd that gathered. While such large gatherings will occur infrequently, it is important that the structural problems evident in this area are addressed quickly.”
"I welcome the fact that Mayor Len Brown has committed the city to addressing the areas of deficiency that fall within its responsibility. Over the next few days I will continue to meet with relevant agencies to ensure there is a quick resolution of outstanding issues,” said Mr McCully.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
I'd have to disagree. The thread is a perfect example of what they're trying to do; we've just helped out for free.
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A lot of it to me seems to come down to lack of planning and managing pedestrian traffic around venues. Were those who know about crowd control listened to?
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AKT gives more detail about what went wrong.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Setting up to fail, much?
which aspect?
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Len Brown announces investigation.
...
Brown said stoppages occurred because people feeling unsafe or constrained repeatedly pressed emergency safety buttons. In older carriages, this brought trains to a halt.
He said the performance by trains was "not satisfactory at all" and improvements in reliability and communication would be needed.
For those who did not make events, Brown said he would not want travellers left "out of pocket".
Mr Brown expressed confidence in train operator Veolia and blamed Auckland's ancient rail stock.
He praised Eden Park and said the public behaved with good-humour and patience. There was a "fabulous atmosphere".
Veoila head Graham Sibery offered his second public apology in three days for failures on the service.
Sibery said huge numbers of passengers added to a regular Friday commuters presented an exceptional situation. He said weekend matches would present fewer problems and trains would be able to move "manageable numbers" of people.
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That was a brilliant (armchair) spectacle, all of it. O for awesome.
But yes, there could well be issues with slick brand marketing culture and government agendas dominating over an operational preparedness focus in the Auckland RWC organising effort.
Encouraging people to all come on down and stroke McCully's cloud was always going to overstretch a transport network that can barely cope with just a big game on its own. Waterfront crowd control seems to have been hopelessly undercooked, with only a couple of hundred police for the whole area. Our tolerant national character has been a blessing.
Frontline staff did brilliantly on the night with what they had, but notwithstanding Craig's hurt feelings the train operators continued a long trend of not communicating adequately with their customers. Part of the failure of the contracting agency to hold them accountable for resolving that ultimately goes back to government policy decisions over the last couple of decades about the power relationship in contracting PT services (felt more in Auckland's buses actually).
Anyway, let's make damn sure that it's fixed in some way before the final. Also that people also see this as a dry run for what the city will be like in a couple of decades time and take the larger political lessons. There are some big decisions being made about priorities that lock us into a particular future which is unsustainable and resembles some mythical quarter-acre past. However, one commenter on the AKT thread probably has it right on that front:
[Steven Joyce] is not even going to BLINK at this minor mishap. If he cares at all, he’s grinning, not feeling embarrassed. He’ll turn this to his favour with the ease of the political pro that he is. Watch him spout the “events like this show that we will always need a good road network, because PT can’t do everything” line for the forseeable future.
Will be some interesting manouvering by Len Brown and Auckland leaders (Mayoral statement coming soon). This is a golden opportunity for the national political oppostion to step up and coherently communicate how their vision for transport, urban design and economic development is better for New Zealanders and our guests. If they stuff that chance (or tell us to 'wait for the election campaign'), then they richly deserve oblivion.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Scribe & Mayor Bob & the Cheesemongrel, all in the same vid
I figured I'd leave comments to you locals.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
to save them from harming only themselves, objectionable. This is quite possibly an intractable difference of opinion
or an intractable difference of fact. But go right ahead. Carrick is having a good laugh.
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Field Theory: Four Years Ago, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
is that like the Hindenberg?
I am a sausage