Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: We can make things better here, in reply to Russell Brown,
Paul’s not a radical and he’s a nice bloke
Fair enough, and especially regarding his niceness. But his column was not balanced or accurate. Like it or not he gave the impression of being extreme in his views.
Most folks feel some roads are good and not every tree is essential. If you are arguing that these trees should be saved then argue that specific case (it's not a hard argument in the case of the 6). To make the leap from those 6 to swaying the whole Waterview development is bad is only going to alienate most of the audience.
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Hard News: We can make things better here, in reply to Russell Brown,
Also, the Board refrained from requiring the preparation of a bonding condition, given that NZTA is a responsible public body. It is now wondering if it should change its mind on that.
ouch!
I find it sad that NZTA would spend money on lawyers (and probably not inconsiderable sums) to try and avoid doing what is obviously the "right thing". Sadly this appears to be part of such organisations losing any incentive to act "for the public good".
That aside overall the NZTA has been pretty good to cyclists, if not always willingly.
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Hard News: We can make things better here, in reply to Sacha,
Because uninformed radicals make for more controversial statements.
Who cares if they are wrong surely not the public that the media are meant to be informing.
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I too found Paul Little's column jarring. I don't think you need to hate cars to love cycles and buses. Each have their own role in transporting us around our city.
A little more balance between cars and bikes is what is needed and perhaps those designing cycle routes could be asked to spend time on bikes themselves. Some of the choices for cycle routes really do not make much sense.
As for the Waterview connection I also am looking forward to it and expect it to reduce the load on some of our local roads.
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Hard News: Works in progress, in reply to Russell Brown,
Auckland’s hills are the essentially the gap between reality and the nice things people say about cycling infrastructure in Amsterdam, New York or London.
It would be nice if the folks planning the alternate cycle routes East and West of Dominion road had ever actually ridden a bike. We have two routes with bumps and stops weaving through side streets. One side makes you go up and down the whole route. the other actually takes you on to Dominion rd for part or the "alternate" route!?!
Had someone who actually ever rode a bike been involved they could have said "look forget about the hilly side, no cyclist will ever bother with it, instead spend all the money on the flat side and make it genuinely viable" by say making all those streets one way and having half of each road a proper two way smooth flat cycle path. Put stop signs on the cross streets so the cycle route has right of way instead of demanding the cyclist stop every 500m and lose all momentum.
As it is, a shit load of money has been spent on two cycle routes that are largely useless.
signed
grumpy old man of Mt Roskill -
Hard News: Works in progress, in reply to Sacha,
overwhelmingly roads for cars and trucks
This is an interesting point. Most people, and apparently planners as well, view roads as existing for cars and trucks. Yet this is incorrect.
Roads do NOT exist to transport cars and trucks.
Roads exist to transport people and goods.
When you views roads as tools to transport people and goods then your view of the value of cycleways and busways becomes quite different.
I do love the freedom our car gives us but I also suspect that there may well be better options in the not too distant future.
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Hard News: Works in progress, in reply to Steve Curtis,
why does it have to be so hard for something we are entitled to
I guess since we want to ride underneath the Newton Rd bridge we have to deal with the troll. Sigh.
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Capture: Peak Pohutukawa, in reply to JacksonP,
So all you want is the perfect pohutukawa shot, with Hobbiton in the background?
Rangitoto would work as well. Basically the kind of picture every kiwi loves to show off to the world :).
I've had a look through here and not found one that fits :(.
And actually I really do know that it isn't an easy set of criteria, we've been looking for the last few years, not really hard but just keeping an eye out and it's frustrating just how many almost perfect trees are spoiled by power lines in particular.
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A request:
As some of you know we work on branching in plants (figuring out how it is regulated), we regularly give seminars and we like to have a couple of pictures of trees with different branching patterns to introduce the topic.
For years now we've been on the lookout for the perfect picture of a Pohutukawa, For us the perfect picture would have several characteristics:
One that shows the random sprawling nature of the branches (pretty much a must have, it is after all the point of the image for us)
One that is in full bloom (because it's pretty that way)
Preferably a single tree on its own
No powerlines
no cars
no people (although not absolutely critical if they are small and not identifiable)
no roads
pretty much no manmade things to distract from the tree.Preferably against a beautiful piece of NZ scenery (we give talks overseas and like to convince our colleagues to come and visit NZ)
Good resolution (it is likely to be on a big screen)So amongst all the photos that folks have taken here does anyone have such a perfect tree that they'd be willing to let us use in talks (with image credit of course)?
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2014: #dirtypolitics, in reply to Ken Sparks,
I’d like to think that investigations into the revelations of dirty politics are far from resolved.
I'd like to think that too
and then my brain identifies the fallacy of such thinking
stupid brain