Text received. Sunday, 17 November 2013 11:06 a.m.
The comment also appears at ODT Online (link supplied). -Eds
—
Some lateral thinking required?
Submitted by Calvin Oaten on Sat, 16/11/2013 – 3:03pm.
In all this discussion on the merits or otherwise of catering specifically for cyclists to have safe means of traversing central Dunedin, it seems that it is the safety which is being lost sight of. Surely, in a survey of recent cyclist fatalities in Dunedin, they have by far and away happened on the SH1 one ways. So why on earth do the authorities insist on staying on those routes? Is there no alternatives?
Let’s look at this. The main trip of concern is from Normanby to the Oval. Start at Normanby on North Rd (not an arterial way) travel to the Gardens, then along Gt King St to the Gardens side gate and onto the cycle/footpath, already existing, to Duke St, down to Castle or Leith Sts. Along to Dundas St and down to Forth St. Along Forth St to St Andrew St. Along Anzac Ave to the Railway Station. Along the station forecourt then onto railway land and proceed behind the Settlers museum and Chinese Garden, across Rattray St and along behind the Box Retail area to Andersons Bay Rd.
Problems? Negotiations would be needed to obtain an easement through the railway land and a lane constructed to suit. Advantages: No fatalities on SH1, No parking to be forfeited. No alteration to the landscaping. Face it, all those mature trees along both route are very efficient ‘carbon sinks’ and one would expect cyclists to appreciate the value of those. From this route it would not take too much planning to tie it in with the N W Harbour to Port Chalmers trail, again obviating needing to go onto SH1 or 88. It also connects nicely with the University complex. A cycle park could be established in the Station vicinity, with a short walk to the CBD.
Win win I would think. Disadvantages: Frankly I can’t think of any, but I am sure there will be.
[ends]
—
Add this:
Anonymous
Submitted on 2013/11/17 at 6:04 pm
Normanby to Gardens on existing cycleway, check.
Through Botanic Gardens on new cyclepath – DCC initiative.
Exit at Leith St, connect to new cyclepath through University – Otago Uni initiative.
Exit at Albany St, proceed to Anzac Ave on existing cycle lane.
Connect through Railway Station to existing cycle lane.
Arrive adjacent to Oval in mint condition.
****
NZTA/DCC Dunedin Separated Cycle Lane Proposal
█ Public consultation on two preferred cycle lane options ends at 5pm on Friday, 6 December.
To access an online survey form or for more information on the separated cycle lane options, visit http://www.nzta.govt.nz/dunedincyclesafe, or email your comments to dunedinshcyclelanes @ nzta.govt.nz. Alternatively, ring 03 477 4000 for an information pack, or post your comments to:
Cycle Lane Feedback, C/o NZ Transport Agency, PO Box 5245, Moray Place, Dunedin 9058
People are welcome to attend the remaining drop-in sessions:
● Held. [12 noon – 2pm, Thursday 14 November, Wall Street Mall]
● 3pm – 6pm, Tuesday 19 November, Otago Settlers Museum
● 12 noon – 2pm, Wednesday 20 November, The Link (University of Otago)
—
Related Posts and Comments:
17.11.13 Cull and MacTavish… “Have you fixed the debt crisis?”
14.11.13 Cycle lane explosions and puncture kits (SPOKES grenades launch)
8.11.13 Dunedin Separated Cycle Lane Proposal [how to make a submission]
5.11.12 DCC, NZTA: Cycle lanes controversy
19.10.13 Cycle lobby games and media tilts
24.9.13 Mediocrity and lack of critical awareness at DCC [council reports]
8.7.13 Bloody $tupid cycleways and Cull’s electioneering . . . [route maps]
28.3.13 DCC DAP 2013/14: Portobello Harington Point Road Improvements
26.2.13 DCC binge spending alert: Proposed South Dunedin cycle network
22.2.13 DCC: Council meeting agenda and reports for 25 February 2013
31.1.13 Who? 2010 electioneering
21.11.12 Safe cycling -Cr Fliss Butcher
—
Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Normanby to Gardens on existing cycleway, check.
Through Botanic Gardens on new cyclepath – DCC initiative.
Exit at Leith St, connect to new cyclepath through University – Otago Uni initiative.
Exit at Albany St, proceed to Anzac Ave on existing cycle lane.
Connect through Railway Station to existing cycle lane.
Arrive adjacent to Oval in mint condition.
—
{Updated post. -Eds}
Anonymous… in the late 1970s that’s exactly what we did (through the Gardens) illegally (but commonly), to travel between Knox and Salmond Halls and the university each day. It’s insane that cycling through the campus is now prohibited.
Technically there’s a ban on cycling on campus, but it is rarely, if ever, enforced. Castle St between Dundas St and campus is University “owned” now; Leith St Central is mostly car parking.
Cycling on campus is banned because there have over the years been serious injuries (and resulting deaths) of pedestrians who have been struck by cycles
So a dedicated cycle lane is needed, shouldn’t be too hard. Otherwise isn’t it the same as banning cycling on streets because of accidents and deaths?
So we close every road in town that is subject to a death or serious injury?
well the one case i know well occurred on a path that was already closed to bikes – late one night, in the dark – it resulted in a brain injury and an eventual suicide – I don’t have a problem with people cycling to the campus then parking their bikes, or walking them when passing through areas where there are pedestrians but zooming around on places reserved for pedestrians with no visibility shouldn’t be allowed.
All this talk about bikes vs. cars seems to forget about pedestrians, some of us ride bikes, some drive cars – but all of us are pedestrians – is there something about getting in/on to a vehicle in Dunedin that somehow causes one to think they own the roads and everyone else should get out of their way? you know that honking noise they make, it’s the mating call of the wild arsehole, required for them to reproduce I hear
Seriously though there’s something out of whack – step out of your vehicle and you become a 3rd class citizen – we have faux pedestrian crossing down the main street where there ought to be real ones, we have traffic lights all over town which only give pedestrian phases if you get to them before they go green (rather than at the point where the cross would stop) and with phases too short for the elderly or disabled to be able to cross at all, and roundabouts that are about the least pedestrian friendly things you can imagine (they need marked zebra crossings around them)
Agree with your first paragraph, Mike – yet despite everything human nature and recklessness stymies commonsense and rules…
As a central city pedestrian (don’t own a car and no longer cycle) my largest gripe is having to tangle with taxi drivers and other drivers who fail to observe the pedestrian’s right of way on footpaths which cross vehicle entrances to supermarkets. When confronted by this I loudly claim I have right of way and they should read the Road Code, and will even thump their car to make the point… it can be weeks later, but I often receive the apologies of the professional drivers!
Agree with everything in your third paragraph.
The Barnes Dance (pedestrians able to cross in all directions _ | and X with all traffic stopped) was abolished because it caused too many delays for motorists. Instead of highly impractical closing of George-Princes Sts to all traffic, for instance, to make the CBD safer and more user-friendly why not reinstate it there and the South Dunedin shopping centre? There have been suggestions like reducing the speed limit throughout town to 30km/h, which would be massively frustrating all the time there’s only one other person and not even a dog visible as far as the eye can see. And that’s a fair bit of the time throughout most of the city’s streets.
Cyclists could wait at the lights, or get off and walk their bike over the road during the “Pedestrians cross now” phase of the Barnes Dance. It was a pleasant civilized way of allowing pedestrians to get around the main shopping centres.
Do the University and the Students’ Assn support cycleways?
If so it’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think, if they won’t have one through their property. One might call it nimbyism, even.
Unfortunately, logical answers to Dunedin’s traffic problems have nothing to do with the raison d’etre.
The council employees and some councillors are intent upon imposing THEIR will on you the funder of their schemes.
They want cycles and cycle lanes and more traffic lights to cement their dominance.
No intelligent ideas will be considered unless the eradication of car drivers forms a part of the modus operandi.
So by all means try to shift the deckchairs, but do not expect the captain and crew to take notice of your ideas.
The titanic struggle has been lost for some time.
John P.Evans: shifting the deckchairs didn’t work so we will do something else. The battle has just begun, so this is no time to give up. We need all hands on deck to fight the debt-mongers and car-haters. Get going.
Jimmy, Denver is not a good example of a city to copy!
Columbine et al
One of Dunedin’s biggest problems is we send DCC staff to conferences to find more ways to complicate our lives AND Make us pay for the privilege of being shafted by the collective “wisdom” of similar minded bureaucrats.
We need to have a city policy that faces up to Dunedin’s unique problems with unique Dunedin aolutions, not some cardboard cutout idea that may or may not have worked in some other dissimillar location.
However to do that it would require a forward thinking DCC and councillors with vision and a will to improve the city, its citizens, and its lot.
Sadly, we do not have that mentality or quality of forward thinking.
From the ever-so-responsible-and-reasonable-my-ass greenwash guy
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/282079/cost-cycling-solution-need-not-be-barrier
The expense of a ”protected-lane” for cycles on Dunedin’s one-way system is not prohibitive, writes Robert Thompson, of Spokes Dunedin. Options to replace lost parking spaces are also present, he says.
SPOKES (with Marketing, University of Otago) snidely pitches the head of Denver COC by webinar but instead receives some home truths !!
### ODT Online Thu, 21 Nov 2013
Economic gains of cycling outlined
By Debbie Porteous
The head of Denver, Colorado’s, chamber of commerce says that city’s improvements to cycling infrastructure have had a positive effect on the city’s brand and economy, although it was difficult to measure the exact impact.
Read more
What really gets on my nerve is the sanctimonious add-on to “build it and they will come” – cycling is healthy exercise and it will be Good For Us to have to cycle and have to walk further from parking places because there’s an obesity epidemic. It’s so unselfish of them to do their best to nannyishly force us to adopt their choice (cycling) – not just to save the planet, not even so we will spend more money in the shops because of all the fuel costs we will be saving (buying what? Stuff we currently don’t want or need? Isn’t that kind of… wasteful?) but because they have decided what kind of exercise we need for our own health. They know that drivers are idle lardy types. As sustainable greenists it cannot be presumptuous for them to declare what’s necessary for other people’s wellbeing, because by definition (and unlike everyone else) they CARE.
Is one to assume all car drivers are of the same political colour? This seems to be the assumption of many of those commenting here who assume that if you ride a bike you must be ‘green’. This is tosh. I ride a bike sometimes. I enjoy it. It’s useful for getting places I need and want to go for work and play. I don’t want to die doing it. The proposals bring money to Dunedin that would otherwise not be spent here, and will create some jobs. The car parking looks like it will be maintained at current levels with some creative thinking. Cycling deaths cost us all money. Big money. The separated cycle lanes won’t impede motorists who get to keep all of their current lanes. To be frank, I find it pretty funny that these proposals have got you guys all so het up! What’s the big deal? Live and let live. Some want to cycle (and drive and dance and laugh and vote for whatever party they want!), some don’t. Is it really going to be a deal-breaker for people who don’t want to cycle if some provision is made for those that do to be safe? As one “businesman” (ahem!) said, utter lunacy!
Read Kelly Brough’s comments.
I have.
Cuteurbangirl, do “Cycling deaths cost us all money. Big money” compared with other deaths? Accidental deaths, and deaths from violent crime I mean. Accidental deaths off-road (climbing, boating, flying) involve paramedics and search & rescue. Murder and manslaughter involve police and court time. Not-unexpected deaths from natural causes probably cost less, though the deceased may have had costly medical care and welfare support in the period directly prior to death so I suppose the cost, in those cases, depends on whether these are counted. If so deaths from illness or congenital conditions may be the ones that most seriously “cost us all money. Big money.”
Cycling deaths tend to occur in built-up areas close to emergency services, both deceased and other person (probably vehicle driver if death involved a collision) can usually be identified quickly, making the actual cost of cycling deaths relatively minor, if one is counting the money. If counting distress and financial stress on those left behind, these are unquantifiable because they differ so much from person to person, family to family. I cannot see why cycling deaths would rank as more tragic, of more impact on family and friends, than deaths of other healthy people, so I conclude that the claim made is “special pleading” and lacks legitimacy.
Hey Hype, there ain’t no special pleading going on here just some wondering what’s freaking you all out about the Government shelling out a small sum of money in Dunedin on cycling infrastructure that we wouldn’t see otherwise? You’re spot on that other accident-related deaths, on average, cost comparable amounts to cycling fatalities independent of the cause. There are lots of costs to be accounted for: court costs, emergency services costs, loss of earnings… the list is long.
Check out this OPUS study for NZTA in 2012, section 4.1 – http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/research/reports/505/docs/505.pdf. Of course there are details and exceptions on a case by case basis but that’s statistics, so I can live with an average.
There’s no special case for people killed on bikes. It’s just a common sense approach that if we know the way to prevent a death, we do that. We put in bright lighting in areas where people have been attacked and assualted at night. We run anti-smoking campaigns because we know smoking’s a major cause of cancer and heart disease. In NZ, physical inactivity cost an estimated $1.3bn in 2010 – see page i, http://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/About-GW-the-region/News-and-media-releases/Physical-inactivity-costs-report.pdf. When there’s a known, heightened risk of car accidents in a particular location, NZTA and local councils intervene to make changes and lessen the risk. There are things we can do to lessen these costs. So we do them. Because we’re not defeated, we’re kick-ass humans!
Hype, cuteurbangirl thinks his research will sway ya. But you know and I know what’s about to happen.
Hell, who needs research when you’ve got rumour, hearsay and superstition?! I ‘spect no amount of research, lipstick or high heels would prove to you that I’m a girl?! I can kill it being a dude on this blog and I’m all agog, boy-style, as to what’s gonna happen. Bring it!
I hope that University of Otago Marketing thought to include the minor trivial fact that Denver is FLAT, so the motivation for a greater percentage of the population (some 600k) to commute by bicycle is significantly higher than it would be in Dunedin.
If they are really set on having dedicated cycleways it is dead simple to do so without compromising existing parking. But I am tired of harping on about the obvious.
Say what, Phil?! The photo you’ve posted is almost exactly the proposal – separated cycle lane on the right hand side. And, I’m with you man, it’s an obvious solution. As to hills and Dunedin being a problem for getting cycling numbers up, I say have you SEEN the crazy hills all our mountain bikers rock on any given ride? It’s the challenge that’s the fun of it!
cuteurbangirl: How is it that cyclists can claim ACC for accidents they have when using roads.
Cars owners, Truck owners, Van owners, Trailer owners, Motorbike owners. All are licensed, warranted, registered and pay hundreds of dollars in ACC levies, before being allowed to use the roads to get from A to B. Cyclists are neither licensed, warranted, registered or pay any ACC levies, or obey the road rules as other road users do.
Until cyclists start paying their share of the costs for using the roads, as other road users do. Then they should at least stay away from state highways.
Yeah, how can pedestrians claim ACC when they’re injured on the streets? And those freaking skiers? Claiming ACC? Sheesh. Seriously you’re thinking is making me smile, Jock strap! It’s funny first, because you’re making the (MASSIVE) assumption that most poeople injured on bikes don’t also own a car.
Second laugh is that cycling injuries are covered by either Earner Levies (paid for by everyone who works) or the Govt’s Non-Earner Account (paid for by general taxation). So if someone’s working or paying GST, they’re already contributing to treatment costs.
Third giggle is about why motorists pay an additional levy. Easy answer is because they cost a lot more. On-road cycling accidents cost ACC on average less than $10m a year compared with more than $350m a year for motorists. If you’re all about the bottom line, places that have looked into demanding cyclists should also be licensed or pay a registration fee (which, it’s usually said, would also help track down all those law-breaking riders too…) have found that the costs of running such a scheme would pretty much outweigh the likely revenue or benefits.
Jock strap, that person riding a bike? Rest easy, they’re paying up too.
cuteurbangirl: If that is cyclists’ logic. Then it explains a lot.
Best you got, Jock? You have provided zero response in terms of what you think is out of whack with my logic! If you don’t give me something to explain what is illogical then you just have to be awarded a D-
Cuteurbangirl: D- that is a high grade for me, especially from someone who rides a cycle. I must have hit a nerve somewhere.
Still waiting for you to get past the attempts at being insulting and tell me where I’m illogical, Jocky Boy!
cuteurbangirl: How could some one that is graded a D- ever have the intelligence to be insulting ?
Darn, a puncture.
Jockster, I’m not knocking your intelligence just waiting for some kind of actual substance behind your assertion that I lack logic. I’m still waiting. And singing occasionally lines that scan poorly… “Why are we waiting, have you got a point or are you just hating?” I’m genuinely interested to hear why you are perturbed by my logic.
‘Cute urban girl’; you say that a common sense approach is that if we know how to prevent a death, then we should do that. Right on so far. If we follow that line of logic, wouldn’t it make sense to facilitate cycling where the risk of contact with hostile traffic is reduced? Following on, wouldn’t the most dangerous routes be those that cater for all and any traffic like SH1’s? Which just happen to be the dual one ways through Dunedin both north and south. So if you are correct then those would be no goes for cyclists wouldn’t they? What is so wrong with cycling along less busy hazardous routes? Surely it is worth an extra five and to arrive alive. Or would you prefer to take the lead and get there dead? Statistics girl, bone up on them and see where the cycling fatalities take place. Gets right back to the common sense approach you advocate. But you will probably get to continue to dice with death as our worthy Mayor and Cr Jinty MacTavish seem hell bent on going with the SH1 options regardless of using the ‘common sense’ you talk of.
Calvin, I guess I see Dunedin as a city that has the misfortune of having the highway run through it. But the road isn’t motorway where it passes through our city. It has houses and shops, a university full of young people, on it. Are you proposing to ban people from coming out of the house they live in and getting on their bike? Pretty radical necessitarian talk…! Props for being so extreme!
Perhaps, seeing as a man was killed on the oneways just by the university we should also ban people from using them. Heck, if we think the car and those who happen to be in it at any particular time trump all other basic rights then go for it! I say, cities are for people above all else. It’s not just SH1 with a city attached. It’s Dunedin and the roads in the city centre should reflect that.
I know where the cycling fatalities took place. Should cars be banned from roads where there are numerous motorist fatalities? That would be interesting. My commonsense says that cities don’t have to be so grim. I’ve lived in a number of them in different places and some of the best are the ones where other modes of transport are given equal respect. Have you lived elsewhere in the world? What did you think of those other places? What made them work? What made them alive?
cuteurbangirl: Fair enough. If people want to cycle in among the heavy duty traffic of the one ways then so be it. As you say, it is their prerogative. But why should the rest of the community be disadvantaged when there are alternative, safer routes which will do the business and get the cyclists to where they want to go, anyway? Seems such a shame that others will die for the principle. And it will only be a matter of time and it will happen. But I guess that is youth for you, death only happens to other people. Age will change that thought. Trust me.
Calvin, I don’t want people to ride their bikes in the heavy traffic. I want them to have a physically separate lane. It’s an easy and, in terms of transport infrastructure, very cheap fix that will solve the problem. Why should the rest of the community be disadvantaged by having two of the main routes through town only passable for cars and heavy trucks? I guess I’m wondering why a detour round the back routes should be any more palatable for people on bikes than for people in cars? Maybe we should divert the faster cars on to the more circuitous routes? If it makes the roads safer for everyone?
I was thinking about your principle of moving endangered transport modes off routes where there are regular problems. I was thinking that, following your logic, we should probably not allow cars on Portobello Road. I mean, so many of them go off into the harbour. It’s not safe for them. I quite like this logic! Btw, though my moniker has ‘girl’ in it, I am not that young! Death happens to lots of people – the cyclist killed on SH1 last year was in his early thirties. Seems pretty real to me.
Physically separate lanes are neither easy nor cheap: they are an impossibility without shutting some roads to other traffic, or demolishing buildings along one side of the road to make the streets wide enough, or removing parking – you know, the thing people do after they have driven to their destination to go about their purpose of shopping, attending university, visiting hospital, going to work. Dave Cull says roads are for travelling not parking, as if the two were in completely different categories. Aside from the “Sunday drive” (not around town!) and the youngsters endlessly showing off their cars to each other round and round town with stereos blaring, cars are a tool for doing something, transporting people and goods between destinations, parking for various lengths of time while the people do what they drove for.
Painting lines on the road does not constitute “separate lanes”. Cyclists like to ride 2 abreast, not unnatural, it’s like taking a friend in a car when you’re going to the same place instead of each taking their own car not just to save gas but also for companionship. I don’t complain about their natural chumminess but about the fact that they do it without realistic appreciation of how poorly they fit into a cycle lane
Then there are the ones who all alone ride on or as close as possible to the painted line. Because of the design of bikes this means that about half of their body is in the car lane. Safe? Sure! Is it OK, is it their “right” and if so is it OK for drivers of vans and trucks with a rear-view mirror that sticks out quite a way from the vehicle to drive with their wheels just inside “their” lane but the mirror protruding over the line into the cyclists’ lane?
You’ve seen those notices on the back of vehicles “If you can’t see my mirror I can’t see you”? That means cyclists too.
Car drivers are at risk from heavy trucks that can’t turn corners from the turning lane. As far as the car-driver knows the heavy transport vehicle is going straight ahead – depends on where they were when its turning lights were operated, and they may have been travelling side by side for a block or more. A cycle lane will not be more effective than the turning lane. Personally I’d like to see over-sized vehicles permitted to only go straight through, with loading and unloading depots from which goods could be distributed by vehicles that fit into the existing streets. Cost, again, is the argument against this. What I have seen over the years is that every time the roads are widened and corners made less sharp to accommodate these giants safely, the truck companies buy even bigger vehicles that then can’t fit safely and the problem is repeated, repeated, repeated – I know because I’ve seen the pattern since I was a child.
I’ve seen cyclists riding in the car lane when there’s a cycle lane. I had that experience myself, a purple-faced lycra’d man who kept doing that, sticking close behind me. I braked several times to give him the message to veer promptly into his own lane and stay there but this didn’t work, back he’d come to where if I’d had to brake hard to avoid an accident he’d have endangered himself. All it did was enrage him and when he stopped beside me at lights quite a long way through town he thumped as hard as he could on my vehicle and let loose a copious gobfull of abuse!
Then there’s the cyclists hit by parked cars – doors opening. So a cycle lane at the side of parked cars is not safe.
There’s more to being “anti-cycle” than irrational hatred comparable with racism or sexism. Cyclists want the same rights as motorists but their needs are different and are very difficult to retrofit into the city as it exists. Sure, lines can be painted on the road. They don’t stop motorists changing lanes unexpectedly between motorists’ lanes, does anyone seriously think they will keep motorists from driving into cyclists’ lanes?
Cyclists don’t pay for the facilities they want. Yes, they pay tax as do we all. Yes, those of them who also own cars pay for the car-associated facilities as do all the non-cyclist car owners. But what cyclists seem to assume is that those common taxes, when paid by them, also give them special claim to special extra facilities.
The motorway has had to get concrete barriers to stop motorists driving head-on into each other. That’s OK, on a motorway you aren’t turning off to go to destinations over the other side. In town it’s not a solution.
I have yet to see a genuinely workable solution to the problem of providing “safety” for cyclists without downgrading the utility of the city as it is at present. The stats on cyclist-caused cyclist accidents emphasise that it’s not everyone else’s fault. My own observations on cyclist behaviour also undermines the demands of (probably the more responsible ones are the ones who get their shit together to express themselves and make these demands) cyclists because of the large number of them I see doing nothing to keep themselves safe. Dark clothing, no lights, or only one light, lights so faint they would only show up in a coal-shed on a moonless night.
My own observations lead to the conclusion that there are currently very few cyclists for all the noise their lobbyists make. I agree that in time there may well be far more – when fuel becomes scarce and extremely expensive – and at that time there will be for precisely that reason far fewer cars so. In the meantime the “build it and they will come” and the pious do-gooding injunctions that drivers SHOULD cycle for the good of their health are as convincing as Farry’s sales-pitch reasons for building the Fubar Stadium. The populace has seen the folly in the “build it and they will come” excuse for spending our money whether rates or taxes, we get harder to convince after each expensive experience.
My unofficial, curiosity-driven “survey”, asking friends and people I don’t know e.g. while comparing vege prices in the supermarket with another shopper, says that those who don’t cycle now don’t want to. The nearest change of attitude has been 2 almost identical: “Well, yes perhaps on a nice day” followed by an explanation of needs to pick up children / not leave home in the morning that much earlier because of family work she has to do before going to her job. The other responses have been variations on No from somewhat apologetic (“not really”) to adamant (“Are you bloody joking?!!!”). Like my late great-aunt I’m an inveterate striker-up of conversations with strangers so my impressions are not based on my own social (i.e. similar to myself) group.
In the NZTA/DCC case where planted median strips are proposed for separating cycle lanes from motorised vehicle traffic on State Highway 1, let there be a new SEPARATION FUND for meeting the death, misadventure and serious injury costs of smithereened contract ‘gardeners’ and maintenance crew members.
Elizabeth, you so funny girl! Fantastic and utterly ludicrous all at the same time!
Calvin: it’s pretty easy, a bridge from Pine Hill to a rich part of Maori Hill, demolish a bit of a private school and a golf course, a neighbourhood or two, and down into Kaikorai Valley Rd, overpasses at Stuaart St/Drivers Road and Bob’s your uncle – no one will care if some of the city’s richest lose out ….. will they?
Forget it, Mike. It’s not about whose houses would be demolished, the discussion wouldn’t get that far. Auckland’s need (or “need” ) for roading has No.1 through to No.544 claim on the roading budget. And then there’s Christchurch.
Dunedin? Dunedin who? (beehive knock-knock joke, rumoured to have originated from The Woodlouse)
That’s a long post, Hype, and I going to hit up your points one by one for simplicity!
Physically separate lanes for riding your bike (another ‘tool for doing something, transporting people and goods between destinations, parking for various lengths of time while the people do what they cycled for’) on are very cheap when the cost is looked at in relation to the amount of money spent on car/truck infrastructure. They’re clearly not an impossibility – the NZTA have put up two different options that are eminently possible. There’s no talk of demolishing buildings or shutting roads, and it is starting to look like parking will be replaced in other nearby locations (brainpower can get us a long way!). The one-ways are very wide streets already, they’re just currently used to provide for two modes of transport with any safety (motorised traffic and pedestrians) and these proposals give the citizens of Dunedin more safe transport choices.
Absolutely agree that painted lines are not separated lanes. On your assertion that cyclists like to ride two abreast – you say that like it’s god’s own truth! – sometimes they might but many will also be travelling alone. Just like a lot of cars in Dunedin have just one person in them. There’s no reason to assume they’re any more ‘chummy’ than any other person! Cycle lanes can be, and are in Dunedin, many different widths. That, just like with lanes for cars, is usually decided by looking at a range of factors such as usage levels, practical constraints etc.
Many cyclists on the painted lanes on the one-ways do ride close to the line next to the traffic line. The reason? Until the lanes were widened, the possibility of those in parked cars opening a door on you – one of the main causes of injury for people on bikes – was very significant. The widened lanes have helped this.
On the size of trucks/trucking companies using larger vehicles, I cannot comment. I suspect that a reintroduction of rail freight as the main way to transport goods would help on this front. Also, maybe there’s a case for legislation about vehicle size? Most of the huge trucks are travelling straight on the one-ways, so the corners may not be such an issue.
If you’ve seen people riding their bikes in the car lanes when there’s a cycle lane, it’s difficult to comment without knowing where you’ve seen this happen. Was the anecdote you relate of a chap doing that on the one-ways? People are allowed, by law, to ride their bikes on the road and they’re prohibited from riding them on the pavement. So if they don’t feel safe in a painted on lane, they are within their rights to be in the main road with traffic. Breaking close behind a someone on a bike doesn’t send the message you think it does. I think the following difference is the same rules as with cars. If you run into someone from behind because you were following too closely behind them, then it’s you that’s at fault. It’s pretty scary when you’re on a bike and a car/bus etc. is very close behind you. It’s illegal to the best of my knowledge.
Dooring is a problem. The problem has been solved by having parking spaces wide enough for doors to be opened without impeding traffic of any kind or putting people in danger. Using cycle lanes as door-opening zones is just plain old bad design. It’s also been proven safer to have cycle lanes on the other side of parked cars, the pavement side. Still with space in the parking zone for door opening.
I definitely agree with you that painted lines solve very little. That’s why these proposals for physically separate facilities are so great. It makes it all easy to understand and doesn’t need to rely on the humans to be perfect at all times. To be ‘anti-cycle,’ as you put it, seems a weird space to occupy. It’s like saying you’re anti-can-openers or anti-calculators. It makes little sense.
As to whether cyclists pay for facilities, the facts have been written about ad nauseum and it is just awesome and tenacious bloody-mindedness if you want to continue to say things that are patently untrue. If you want to read, one more time, why this factually inaccurate try out this recent article
When it comes to concrete barriers and not being able to turn in town, two points. One, the NZTA proposals are at the high-level not the detailed design stage. Two, lots of other places have worked out ways to accommodate all transport modes better within their city centres. With good solutions that don’t alienate any one mode choice. I have faith in Dunedin that we can be as clever!
The ‘utility of the city as it is at present’ not very utilitarian if you’re not a freight truck or a person who must park precisely 2m from the place they need to go. People who ride bikes are just as diverse in terms of following rules, being responsible on the roads as those who ride cars or both. I have seen over the course of my life incidents that I could string together and make statements about, but that is really not a scientific approach! Your personal experience has only so much value when it comes to empirical evidence. There are cyclists who don’t help themselves. My partner and I got freaked out the other night driving along Portsmouth Drive towards Andy Bay Inlet and suddenly seeing a cyclist riding on the other side of the road in the opposite direction to the traffic with no lights at all. But there are motorists that are as crazy. It’s humanity! Definitely not something to judge a whole group on.
There are lots of people in Dunedin who want to cycle if it were safer. Lobbyists are only as powerful really as the numbers that support them. The Council tested out the demand in a ‘People’s Panel’ survey a few months back and 5% of the 400-odd surveyed already used a bike regularly as a transport mode and a further 25% would like to http://spokesdunedin.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/dunedins-peoples-panel/. I haven’t heard any ‘pious do-gooding’ from those advocating for safe cycling infrastructure on the one-ways. The main thing seems to be avoiding having anyone else killed in that really crappy way and responding to the desire-line of cyclists. There are other benefits and cost-savings from having more people ride bikes, so there are inevitable ‘good’ outcomes but these aren’t in the main push as far as I can see. You are aware that this money is national money, yes from taxes, but money that wouldn’t be invested in Dunedin otherwise? And that the costs are minimal when set against motorised vehicle infrastructure investment?
Your unofficial survey isn’t reflective of the evidence from elsewhere in our globalised world where putting in safer infrastructure has seen big jumps in the number of people choosing to ride a bike. Whilst you may not respect that evidence, I guess I’m thinking it’s a good bet that we’ll see the same thing here. I could tell you of a dozen conversations I’ve had as small talk on the issue that have given very different results but it’s hardly evidence, eh?
—
{Perhaps the clearest indication yet that cuteurban(girl?) is a DCC staffer, paid to give considerable thought to the problem of cycle lanes/make-work schemes: “When it comes to concrete barriers and not being able to turn in town, two points. One, the NZTA proposals are at the high-level not the detailed design stage. Two, lots of other places have worked out ways to accommodate all transport modes better within their city centres. With good solutions that don’t alienate any one mode choice. I have faith in Dunedin that we can be as clever!”. Slippage detection is a cool tool. -Eds}
More like spaghetti junction – length doesn’t mean persuasive or erudite unless from trusted contributors. There’s less wind in tyres.
Cuteurbangirl, you say that [my] “personal experience has only so much value when it comes to empirical evidence” and then make the claim without so much as a hint of whose hat you pulled it out of, “There are lots of people in Dunedin who want to cycle if it were safer.”. That’s the kind of statement that can be generated from surveys if the questions are framed to produce such a result. Here is an example from Stuff.co.nz that was a follow-up to an article on children being rowdy and disruptive in restaurants, affecting the enjoyment of other diners’ night out:
“Is it ever OK to complain about other people’s kids?
Yes, children should be seen and not heard.
No, let kids be kids and let off steam.
It depends on the situation.”
The question “is it EVER” but then puts qualifiers into the Yes or No options, so the people who click No because they mean “No, parents should stop them, and shouldn’t take them to quiet (i.e. not “family-promoted” eateries) if they haven’t been able to teach them how to behave appropriately” may find that the results of the poll are presented as “X% of NZers think kids should be allowed to let off steam” – which is another thing altogether. Letting off steam AND being quiet and respectful of the rights of others are both important. So I wonder how the question was framed and how neutral was the overall context – was it one where people want to present themselves as already into “healthy lifestyle” e.g. telling the doctor one only has two drinks after work when it’s 2 beer glassfuls of wine! …And worse still, convincing oneself that it’s only 2 drinks because, well, in a literal sense it is. “I’ll go to the gym when I’ve replaced my exercise pants” yeah right. “The reason I don’t cycle is I’m nervous about the traffic, click [THINKS: and I’ve got a car with rego and w.o.f. and I can afford the petrol so if a time comes when I don’t have them I’ll bike / and I was going to bike on Monday but it was raining, then on Tuesday the alarm didn’t go off so I didn’t have time, and on Wednesday I have to get home, have dinner, and go straight out to a meeting and it’s rush-rush-rush, and on Thursday…….”].
Hype, I quoted the survey results. If you don’t trust the survey results then what’s there to say? You want to think that everything’s going to stay the same, that everyone thinks as you do. I say, whatup – stuff’s a changing! Not everyone out there finds a million reasons to miss out on a great ride. :) Hope you discover how full of fun a journey by bike is and how much more alive you feel with the wind in your hair and your heart pumping as you race along!
Endorphins [explains the rushes to the head in his comments].
While SH1 is there and we have to deal with it, the long-term solution is to make SH1 not be there.
Anon. Oh Right! We just wave a wand and SH1 disappears, complete with all its traffic. So where is the clutter to go? Take to the air? Now there’s a thought.
cuteurbangirl, One dead cyclist in his early thirties. Yep, that’s real alright. But oh so needless if he had only been on a different route.
There are a few other ‘ifs’ you’re forgetting, Calvin, like he wouldn’t have been killed so gruesomely IF the car driver had not opened their door into the cycle lane. That’s faulty infrastructure and one we have a solution to. Or, he wouldn’t have been killed IF the truck had side protectors to stop cyclists been dragged underneath, as is mandatory in many other countries.
I have to say, I’m really struggling to understand why you’re so opposed to this investment in Dunedin? And why you want to get all Mugabe on freedoms like choosing how you wish to travel and the route you wish to take?!
Moving SH1 eventually is not a completely crazy idea. It’s a costly one – many millions and much time needed – and one that would actually require some real thinking about what we currently freight by road that could shift to rail, but it’s not impossible. It’s definitely time for Dunedin to be ‘can do’ instead of ‘don’t!’ Hail, the bright future!
As you probably know, the DCC has current plans* to disestablish sections of the one-way State Highway system: south of Queens Gardens in the warehouse precinct (precinct to be listed/re-zoned in the Second Generation District Plan); and in the Campus Precinct (ongoing discussion with University of Otago). These sections subject to public consultation and budgets will revert to dual carriageways.
*Long-held plans, actually…given thoughts of the late Richard Walls (ex chair of Finance and Strategy) and friends.
But then… DCC tried to get the Rattray Street level crossing re-instated – it went as far as Prime Minister Helen Clark and DP Michael Cullen, and was soundly rejected.
Those are very long-term plans, Elizabeth, and I don’t want any more people-killing on the one-ways in the interim. This is a pragmatic solution.
Whatever happened to dying doing something you enjoy?! Then you better get all cyclists, skateboarders and motor vehicles OFF the roads, altogether. A couple of deaths on the one-way, no disrespect to the deceased or their families – but so what. Yeah, it’s a messy way to go and they had no protection; they took the risk of using the one-ways and it didn’t pay off.
Been a cyclist too long to think I was that invincible on the one-way-squeeze.
If you work in emergency services (paid or volunteer) and have endured scraping body parts and human remains off the roads into collection bags, would you say the one-ways (with green fingers-inspired) separated cycle lanes AND dangerous intersections are the place for cyclists to tempt fate? No.
Besides, more mortalities happen at hospitals everywhere all the time, in significantly larger numbers with preventable cause. So what are the priorities for spending our taxes on life and limb? Sure as hell isn’t the unproductive laying in of dangerous separated cycle lanes that don’t take account of (minimally) light-controlled intersections on the one-ways in a no-growth town like Dunners.
The SPOKES brigade are like predatory cluster flies at best – a bunch of newbie zealots.
Well, with one wave of a legal document, a section of SH88 disappeared….
How else but gruesomely can you get killed if you are tossed under a truck whilst traveling on a main highway? The safest answer is simply don’t!!
Moving SH1 is not a crazy idea. No? Well for a city starting with a consolidated debt of ($623m) it sounds pretty crazy to me. Maybe I am wrong and the thousands of present and would be cyclists could all put in and fund it. While at it they could just simply rebuild the whole city then we would have it all fixed. GET REAL!!!! To be fair, I doubt that many people are against the idea of freedom to cycle if that is one’s thing. Just do it where the hazards are minimal, and frankly SH1 is not it.
Arguing against relocating SH1 by bringing in a reference to DCC consolidated debt is not relevant. $40 million was just expended on the Caversham realignment, with no significant DCC funding component.
There’s stuff that the DCC wouldn’t have to pay for, and stuff they would. Rates foregone through buildings demolished then people deciding bugger this, I’m relocating my home and/or business away from this overpriced sinking ship, for instance.
Hype, we agree on this that there are costs that would fall on the DCC from that kind of work.
As to relocating away from an ‘overpriced sinking ship’, Dunedin looks so good compared to the myriad, far more sinking and overpriced ships everywhere else.
Caversham realignment, with no significant DCC funding component. Anonymous. Who was it that bought the houses in Cavy valley from the land owners, and held them at the ratepayers’ expense until Transit required them?
Anonymous. Do your homework please.
Are you able to show that the DCC made a significant loss on these purchases? Are you able to show that this loss was a significant portion of the $40 million budget (for example, it doesn’t apply to the phase 1 realignment).
By contrast, the expense incurred by the DCC through its own incompetence regarding SH88 *is* a significant expense.
Thank goodness I don’t have to regularly drive around Dunedin streets as much as I used to. But I was driving along Portsmouth Drive towards the city yesterday (Sunday) and witnessed yet again a situation I’ve seen dozens of times before. A cyclist on the road hard against the left hand side of the road and wanting to go straight ahead. Problem is that a vehicle that was also in the left hand lane wanted to turn left at the next intersection and who had passed the cyclist a fair distance before the intersection was then passed on the inside by the cyclist as they both approached the intersection. Vehicle was correctly indicating and there was no real reason why the driver should have checked their left-hand mirrors – although in this case they did – but the cyclist was clearly outraged that they were “cut off”. Who was at blame for the near miss? The cyclist for passing on the inside? I reckon that it was. The cyclist should have remained at the rear of the vehicle. But time afer time we see cyclists “lane-threading” between lanes of traffic and then standing on their pedals at the intersection, not wanting to put their feet on the ground, wobbling their front wheel from side to side to remain in balance. Then 50% of the time they pedal off against the red light, or get infuriated when vehicles who have remained in their lane pass either side of them. Anywhere on Frederick or Albany Streets is a good place to see this nonsense.
I’m gobsmacked by the depth of what is clearly a fairly well-orchestrated campaign and the apparent unwillingness of the cycling fraternity to wish to push for safer routes rather than SH1. Just what is sacred about SH1 and cycling? Maybe SH1 should not be where it is, but get a grip. It’s not going to change. So the safer alternative is to route cycleways on alternative quieter routes.
Cuteurbangirl : Hear what Russell said? “Get a grip.”
Oh Jock darling, please don’t forget to actually point out at some point before the next millenium why my original points that you said were illogical, were. Otherwise I’m just going to be stuck with the thought that you’re all talk and no action! That would be so dismal!
No-one has to reply to anyone on this or any other blog. No-one has a cycle-god right to demand reply – the conceit is typical of those who don’t and won’t consider other cycle-lane options are valid and less likely to be this expensive to implement and maintain. The letter to the editor in today’s ODT (tree version) asking where [the wide breadth of] NZTA’s research on Dunedin demographics is ???? (implied question, does it exist…), received weak reply from the powers that be. Not surprising.
I guess your blog rules are no one has to reply and no one has to substantiate their weak slurs. I can live with your funny blog and I reserve the right to ask someone who’s questioned my logic what precisely is wrong with it. Otherwise it’s not debate just insult throwing and that’s so boring!
And which (see your last paragraph, Russell), is very easy to do.
There are safer routes, and Dunedin’s street network means same or similar bike travel times. The only thing driving the NZTA/DCC proposal is supposedly ‘free and fast taxpayer money’ – with ex DCC CEO Harland pulling strings at NZTA because he fancies himself as an urban planner (and is pushing the project at DCC to NZTA budget timelines). Then Lesser Dunedin and Liability Cull used the cycle ways as election fodder – irresponsible and derelect in their duties. With little freebie-greenies harping on and spreading their religion like a fricking nursery chorus.
Guys, you cracking me up. Keep it up! How about we find a safer route for trucks to use as they’re doing most of the killing of people on bikes on the Highway? I mean, a detour in a truck is less arduous that a detour on a bike. Sound fair? The ‘grip’ is easy to get. Just chillax guys! It’s a separated cycle lane that will cost a minimal amount of national investment in transport infrastructure, not proposals for a concentration camp! It’s really not the Big Deal you want to make it. Chill. Live and let live and don’t give in to your anti-libertarian tendencies. The business sector won’t like your necessitarian bent, and aren’t some of those ‘businessmen’ like the Mall Manager at the Golden Centre your allies? Maybe you need to focus your attention on more pressing world problems that spending all your time trying to halt progress.
Russell, on your specific anecdotal evidence that your using to make a wider point (dubious?!), it’s very hard to know what a cyclist is meant to do. If they stay on the left-hand side, you get the problems you’ve set out; if they get in line with traffic, they’re in the ‘cars’ space’; if they are on the right-hand side, they’re not following the road code for cyclist activity. Good infrastructure will resolve these sorts of issues. It has elsewhere.
The reasons for separated cycle ways on SH1? People want to ride their bikes directly and fast to places, just like they get to do when they drive their cars. Those are key routes in our city and there’s no good reason they should be out-of-bounds to bikes. If we banned modes of transport because of their danger stats on particular routes then we’d have no cars allowed on Portobello Road where so many go into the harbour each year.
Don’t get so wound up, dudes! Be tolerant that others want to live their lives differently to you. That’s freedom!
cuteurbangirl,I see that you have not answered my point about “lane-threading” – a really common and unlawful practice that leads directly to accidents. My specific example – which is not in any way dubious – is for the cyclist not to “undertake” but to stay in line in a lane. That way they see vehicle indicators amongst other things. But many cyclists in my experience don’t want to obey traffic rules but want to lay down their own code of practice which has been proven to be both dangerous and unfriendly to other road users.
It is clear from your response to my post and to others that you are not really interested in practical and safe solutions at all, but are only interested in pursuing your own agenda. Fine, and no issues with that, but I would have thought that you should be interested in pursuing practical solutions to some of the heavy traffic issues as well. How about supporting an inland port at Wingatui so that all logs destined for Port Chalmers are off-loaded before they enter the City and are then put onto rail when the ships come in? Gets rid of some really dangerous heavy traffic for all road users in one fell swoop.
It doesn’t stop the freight movements along SH1, but would help.
So, I say to you, start to get a grip and start learning that it is not infrastructure that will save you, but your own behaviour. Go to a riding course that teaches you defensive riding as most responsible motorcyclists do.
Elizabeth, are you for realz?! :) Whilst I got a kick out of your elaborate language, how weird that you push everyone who doesn’t agree with you into pidgeon holes that don’t fit them! The only thing I see driving the proposals is commonsense and safety. And meeting the needs of all road users. There’s nothing remotely religious or string-pulling about it. What I don’t get is why, fundamentally, you’re so against this kind of progress that you spend your time getting het up about it and writing these inaccurate comments! Heck, I’ve probably got some work you can do if you’re at a loose end!
I’d love to try out your same or similar bike travel times hypothesis. Maybe you could set up a challenge to work those through. I’d be interested in the results. The one-ways are convenient and fast. There are different kinds of riding, just as there are different kinds of motorised traffic and some people want to just ride their bike as quickly as they can to the place they want to go e.g. work/shops. Not take a scenic, time-consuming detour with many intersections that don’t have traffic lights.
The only chorus I see is the dismal, defeated, can’t-do-that one that yourself, Hype, Jocky, Russ and Calvin put forward. I’m glad we’re not all as unimaginative. What would Isambard Kingdom Brunel make of your sorry cries?
Russ – does behaviour seem to be working for those driving cars? Dunedin’s always topping the dangerous roads list! I’m not sure what I can say to your very specific example of a person riding a bike irresponsibly. What would you say if I described someone driving a car irresponsibly? What meaning does any of that have?
I have no problems with inland ports. I see they can offer advantages. Personally, rail makes more sense.
As to pushing my own agenda, whatevs! I’m arguing on rational points for what seems obvious, modern city thinking. If Dunedin wants to remain, as Hype I think put it, “Dunedin who?” then let’s go with your anti-people, anti-progress stance. If we want to be somewhere the cool kids come with their entrepreneurial money-making skills, then we need to provide the kind of city they want to live in. Think Silicon Valley. I’m guessing you’re more for a Grimsby type future though…?!
So are you a paid-up ‘officer’ for SPOKES (Dunedin) ?
Or are you a salaried DCC staffer in Transportation Planning ?
Or a flat tyre.
Or white-feathered roadkill from NZTA. Angel or chicken that didn’t get to the other side.
{What she said.}
As you seem to have removed the right to reply, Elizabeth, I’ll just post my comment here. I’m someone who thinks for myself, sees the bigger picture and has the ability to dream of the future. SPOKES are doing a great job. Go SPOKES!
Who are you?!
—
{No ‘right to reply’ has been removed. The thread is open for comments. -Eds}
Eds, thank heaven for that.
So you’re one of them (we like to give you options).
Are you ‘one of’ some other ‘them,’ Elizabeth? I am 100% me and I think for myself. This is a Dunedin blog and you and your compadres are spreading untruths and inaccuracies. You will cripple the potential of this city if you keep it up. I feel for you. I’m educated, unburdened by dependants, financially solvent and, perhaps most importantly, mobile. If Dunedin doesn’t start behaving like a city of the 21st Century and insists instead on thinking that’s about 40 years behind cutting edge thinking then I’ll just move. I won’t be alone. You have choices to make about what you want for Dunedin. Good luck.
Port Otago did significant work to establish a railhead at the Dukes Road plant. It should be expanded.
The Dunedin City Council Annual Report for 2012/13 is now available.
Page 180, Community Outcome Reporting undertaken in 2012/13. A Residents Opinion Survey (ROS) of the means of travel to work/school (mode of travel):
Drove truck van or car(no passengers) 50%
Ditto above (privately owned) 85%
Walk or Jog 10%
Company owned vehicle 15%
Work from home 10%
Passenger in truck, van or car 6%
Public Transport (bus) 4%
Bicycle 3%
Motorcycle 0%
Other 3%
So there we are. Tell me we are not catering for a very very small minority?
—
{Link added. -Eds}
Calvin I see that ‘other’ = bicycling as a means of travelling to work or school. I wonder if NZTA. or even the DCC has plans to cater for this category as it represents an equal percentage of transportation mode as bicycling. Horses, skateboarding and roller skating come to mind; all have been observed as transportation methods seen in Dunedin. Each has its own special demand for spatial and corridor design. Perhaps this aspect needs more funding for further research. After all as cuteurbangirl insists, “If we want to be somewhere the cool kids come with their entrepreneurial money-making skills, then we need to provide the kind of city they want to live in.” I say let’s go horsey – its a winner.
I think there is a bit done on providing for skaterboarders. Maybe horses would appeal to the high tech crowd?!
Yes cuteurbangirl
The mayor is desperately trying to ‘save’ Invermay. Maybe he could get them involved – their speciality animal genetic research – rationale to connect the dots to meet your challenge as you state… “If we want to be somewhere the cool kids come with their entrepreneurial money-making skills, then we need to provide the kind of city they want to live in.” Just the ticket. Two ‘birds’ (horses) with the one stone. What’s not to like?
[or Drive Safe – book a DCC fleet vehicle]
Or roasted.
Elizabeth, ha! Keep demonising and stifling any true thought! Would you make the same, how to describe, death threats as you have with these comic cartoons in real life? Your debating skillz know no bounds! Good luck, guys, I’ve had enough. I’m guessing you’re never gonna want to actually discuss this stuff really. Your comments make me think you have minds like fully set concrete. No gaps for creativity or forward-thinking. For the possibilities of life. Are you proud of your mindsets? Are they going to win you medals for advancing humanity? Sleep never looked so attractive.
Calvin, yo! This is data for current mode of travel but other DCC surveys show there is latent demand for riding a bike. Public transport is only 1% higher. What do you think that means? And what should we do about it?
Very DCC-staffer sounding. Te royal “we”.
Yo Liz! RU onto th cool street-cred phatic theme interspersed quaintly and at odds with another modulation?
Hey Liz you take me seriously, hear me yes? I askin you RU onto it.
[Tonal flip here]:
“…DCC surveys show there is latent demand for riding a bike.”
Concise OED: latent adj. existing but not yet developed, manifest, or active.
Re this claimed demand, what’s the period of latency?
Sorry, would you prefer me more individualistic and self-centred?
You raise the left arm up
And your right arm too
Let me tell you just what to do
Start both of em to flapping
You start your feet to kicking
That’s when you know
You doin the funky chicken
I can’t help it, Hype, if I’m a girl with many facets. You grow up where I did and you how to talk in many ways with many people. My accent’s blurred over the years but city kids aren’t automatically illiterate nor do they have limited vocabularly. I’m happy to flip in an out! Are you just a one-trick pony?
Elizabeth, you still clucking about all this?! I guess your feathers have got a bit ruffled. Sleep tight, chickadee!
cuteurbangirl; ‘Latent demand for riding a bike.’ Hidden, concealed; existing but not developed or manifest; (dormant); so says the ‘the Concise Oxford Dictionary. At just 3% perhaps we should wait till the real demand comes out from hiding.
From the Beyond Parody section: “would you prefer me more individualistic and self-centred?”
Yawn!
Dem chickens home to roost, Therm.
—
Published on 20 Nov 2013
Dead Parrot. YouTube Comment Reconstruction #1 – ‘One Direction: What Makes You Beautiful’
The YouTube comment section can sometimes make you question humanity, so to cheer you up we’re bringing you dramatic reconstructions of some of the best comment wars. Produced by Adrian Bliss. Actors: Grahame Edwards (left) and Eryl Lloyd Parry.
I like it, Elizabeth. My compatriots. And they put it better than I. Perhaps you’re right. The only way to have anything like a conversation on here is to say “fuck off, you wankers”.
—
{Elizabeth, that little cycle gal visiting here – subtle as a racing bike seat. -Eds}
November 25, 2013 at 11:48 pm
cuteurbangirl said” I like it, Elizabeth. My compatriots. And they put it better than I. Perhaps you’re right. The only way to have anything like a conversation on here is to say “fuck off, you wankers”.
But cuteurbangirl, you weren’t having a conversation here, you were making statements and assertions indispersed with snide comments. The essential argument put here was that
(a) Their level of cycling here in Dunedin was so low that it hardly required the expensive improvements advocated by the cycling lobby and as supported by the DCC.
(b) That the cycle lanes on the one way system may be better located in quiet streets.
(c) The city council’s debt level is already too high for the diminishing rate base and that if anything this project should be considered in light of that debt.
(d) The whole (cycling) programme was quite extensive and the focus should be confined to addressing the problem where the accidents occurred.
When you didn’t get everything your own way you accused the other commentators of swearing at you.
After all your protestations and shifting of ground, these matters and questions remain. Whether or not the authorities continue with this project is another matter. But given the ineptitude of decisions relating to the stadium and the associated road alignment and construction connecting SH88 as well as the enormous debt that it has incurred, it seems reasonable to question this.
Finally despite your self description, may I say that you are not cute even if you might be urban. You are certainly not urbane. The girl part ….well.
Red-carpet whammy, three chocolate fish awards: game-set-match, checkmate, and knocked-the-bugger-off.
The game’s not nearly over. You’ve all jumped up and down because I swore and said I made snide remarks in between making my points, but if you read back you’ll see that you often just made snide remarks and forgot to make any points, or used videos or cartoons to do your insults and swearing for you. As to Mick’s most recent insults, I’m more urbane than any of those touting parochial claptrap here and I’m definitely female. Cute is for each to decide for themselves. It’s fun now to know that the winning of these separated facilities will be the rescuing of Dunedin from wallowing in the doldrums of some yesteryear nomansland.
Ms Connolly?
cuteurbangirl
You prove my point absolutely.
I like you.
What if? would get more views as a dating site.
REMINDER FOR SUBMISSIONS
Dunedin Separated Cycle Lane Proposal
8 Nov 2013 [DCC media release]
Dunedin City Council
Dunedin Online People’s Panel – Dunedin Cycle Survey Report (September 2013)
This survey provided guidance to the Council on:
● The level of general interest there is in cycling; and
● Whether there is general support from the community to develop and improve cycling facilities in Dunedin.
Cycle Survey Report September 2013
Find out more about the Dunedin Online People’s Panel.
—
Dunedin Online People’s Panel – Dunedin Cycle Survey (June 2013)
Plans are underway for an extension of Dunedin’s cycling network, commencing in the South Dunedin area later in 2013.
Cycle Survey Report July 2013 (PDF, 131.9 KB)
The survey attracted answers from 504 panel members.
One of the results charts (redrawn via SPOKES):
From Cycle Survey Report September 2013 “75% of the respondents use a car as their main mode of transportation, whereas only 39% of the respondents would like to use was a car as their main mode of transportation.”
What was the question? The exact words I mean. Was it ambiguous?
If it was anything that could be reasonably interpreted as meaning “…instead of what you currently use” I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t, if it were phrased that way, answer “car” since “car” is what I already use.
So, great cycling cities like Amsterdam naturally have cycle paths? This is how the Dutch got their cycle paths in the 1970s:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BZv0XESCYAAuMiX.jpg:large
Looks like Amsterdam had more than a little cadre of vocal cyclists lobbying at the time. Kind of what was said in the online webinar featuring Denver Chamber of Commerce’s CEO, Ms Kelly Brough.
### ODT Online Wed, 4 Dec 2013
1780 submissions made on cycling lanes
By Debbie Porteous
With three days remaining before submissions close, the New Zealand Transport Agency has already received 1780 responses to its proposals for separated cycle lanes through central Dunedin. Submissions have been made both in writing (1050) and through an online survey (730) and are already giving some clear direction to authorities.
Read more
See above comment, REMINDER FOR SUBMISSIONS.
Posting this belatedly…
—
### ODT Online Sun, 1 Dec 2013
Magazine
Responses to cycling
By Shane Gilchrist
There is no doubt car parks would have to go to accommodate a separated cycle lane. For the uni-directional ”One-Way Pair” option, up to 390 car parks could be lost; the bi-directional Cumberland St option could cost 185 car parks. As John Christie, chief executive of the Otago Chamber of Commerce, notes […] it would be a ”very narrow view” to consider the argument solely as parking versus cycling.
Read more
****
People are being surveyed without any cost-benefit analysis in place:
### ODT Online Sun, 1 Dec 2013
Magazine
Sharing the road – navigating the cycling arguments
By Shane Gilchrist
Separating the arguments from the red herrings is proving as difficult as separating trucks and bicycles in Dunedin’s cycle lanes debate.
Read more
I notice that Spokes are recruiting submissions from overseas and from other parts of New Zealand. Perhaps they don’t have the support they claim to have. Surely only Dunedin citizens and ratepayers should be able to make submissions on issues that concern their city and their city alone. I hope any submissions from non-citizens are rejected.
Maz, not surprising. If you haven’t submitted feedback to NZTA yet – or even if you have – it would be great to note this to NZTA. I’m going to. Hope others do too. I keep reading SPOKES-persons’ emails that are sent to me (from an insider)… interesting!
Have just emailed my completed Feedback Form to NZTA (five pages in total).