█ UNDEMOCRATIC—Council staff agendas are directing major changes to Dunedin’s road networks. Continued use of exclusive ‘workshops’ lacks transparency and accountability.
Cr Hilary Calvert asks ‘why councillors were not more involved in developing the strategic cases’. (ODT)
Cr Lee Vandervis says ‘the problems identified were based on ”absurd or probably false” assumptions’. (ODT)
STAFF ASSUMPTIONS
► There is too much parking in Dunedin
► Restricted parking will increase use of public transport
► Encouraging more people to cycle makes roads safer
### ODT Online Tue, 6 May 2014
Council notes roading strategic cases
By Debbie Porteous
The first step towards securing funding for major changes to Dunedin’s road networks has been taken by the Dunedin City Council, even though exactly what those changes will be is yet to be decided. Councillors yesterday noted council staff had taken the first of six steps in a new process for applying for funding from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA).
Read more
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█ Strategic Case Development for Improvements to Dunedin’s Central City and Freight Network
Report – ISC – 05/05/2014 (PDF, 993.6 KB)
Excerpts from the report…
Council staff have recently submitted two Strategic Case applications to the NZ Transport Agency; one for investment to improve the access, mobility and safety of the Central City; and the other to enhance Dunedin’s Freight Network. Pending approval from the NZTA, Council staff will begin the Programme Business Case stage, where investment options and alternatives will begin to be developed and defined. Staff will seek Councillor support and input prior to the submission of the Programme Business Case to the NZ Transport Agency, anticipated to be later this year.
The NZ Transport Agency has recently adopted a Better Business Case approach to guide the planning and project development for investment applications. It is a principles-based approach that clearly links their investment goals to outcomes, and defines problems and their consequences thoroughly before solutions are considered. This approach ensures a shared view of problems and benefits early in the transport planning process. The business case approach encourages early engagement with stakeholders to confirm:
● fit with strategy and need to invest
● the way forward with short-listed options
● that the best value option is affordable and deliverable and that the risks are acceptable.
To execute many of the projects outlined in Dunedin’s Integrated Transport Strategy requires funding from external sources. A significant source of transportation funding is potentially available from the NZ Transport Agency. As detailed above, Council must now apply for funding from the NZ Transport Agency through their Better Business Case approach. This stepped approach ensures that any solutions are in response to clearly defined problems, and are aligned to the NZ Transport Agency’s investment goals.
Council staff held initial discussions with key stakeholders, the NZ Transport Agency and the Otago Regional Council to define the areas of focus for investment. The group agreed that the Council should focus on establishing two Strategic Cases: 1. Dunedin Central City: Access, Mobility and Safety; 2. Dunedin Freight Network. These areas strongly align with those set out in our Integrated Transport Strategy.
The first step of establishing the Strategic Case is to develop an Investment Logic Map (ILM). The ILMs set out the key problems and the benefits of solving the problems. Two ILM workshops were hosted for each of the areas of focus. Participants included the key stakeholders (DCC staff, Council Committee Chairs – Cr Wilson, Cr Benson-Pope, Cr McTavish; NZ Transport Agency and the ORC) and relevant partner organisations (including Otago Chamber of Commerce, Public Health South, Port Otago Ltd, Kiwirail, and Heavy Haulage Association).
[see ILMs for each Strategic Case at Attachment 1]
…
Strategic Case – Executive Summary
Staff from the Dunedin City Council (DCC), the NZ Transport Agency and Otago Regional Council (ORC), as well as the Public Health Service and the Otago Chamber of Commerce participated in two Investment Logic Mapping (ILM) workshops to identify the key access, mobility and safety problems in central Dunedin, and determine the benefits of investing in solutions that address these problems.
This report sets out the strategic case for improving access, mobility and safety in central Dunedin. Part A provides the strategic context and fit of the proposed investment and the evidence to support the justification for investment. Part B describes how the three contributing organisations intend to develop the next stage of business planning – the programme business case. This section outlines the further planning needed to achieve the identified benefits.
This application shows that that there are some key synergies between the strategies and objectives of the three key stakeholder organisations, where priorities for future investment align. Evidence supporting each of the key problems identified in the ILM workshops is outlined section 3.4, and reveals a strong case for change and need for investment.
…
3.1 Defining the Problem
Dunedin City Council convened a facilitated investment logic mapping workshop that was held on 10th February 2014, with key stakeholders to gain a better understanding of current issues and business needs. The stakeholder panel identified and agreed to the following key problems:
Problem one: SH1, the railway and north/south arterial routes bisect areas of high pedestrian use resulting in dislocation and poor connectivity of key areas
Problem two: The design, use and management of central city routes results in intermodal conflict
Problem three: Management and provision of car parking is not integrated into the transport network, which favours car use, impacting adversely on the quality of life in the City
Problem four: The design, management and lack of integration of public transport discourages use and leads to low patronage
[see the Investment Logic Map at Appendix A]
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3.2 The Benefits of Investment
The potential benefits of successfully investing to address these were identified as part of a second facilitated investment logic mapping held on 17th February, 2014. The stakeholder panel identified and agreed the following potential benefits for the proposal: (CONFIRM)
● Benefit one: Reduced severance
● Benefit two: Improved safety
● Benefit three: Central City is a ‘nice place to be’
● Benefit four: Greater resilience
[see Benefit Map at Appendix B]
…
Figure 1: High risk areas identified through risk mapping
A risk assessment process known as KiwiRAP maps the collective crash risk of roads based on the physical and operating characteristics of intersections and corridors, as well as crash history. The map shows that Dunedin’s high risk areas (shown in black and red) are predominantly located within the central city, as demonstrated in Figure 1.
…
4 Strategic Context
This section demonstrates how the investment proposal has clear linkages to existing strategies of each of the stakeholders. There are some key synergies between the three organisations, where priorities for future investment align. A summary of the strategies that support this investment proposal from each of the stakeholders is detailed below. The goals and/or objectives selected are those with direct relevance to this investment proposal.
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6.4 Scope
The evidence to support the three problem statements developed during the Investment Logic Mapping workshops generally provides a strong case for change. It is also evident that many of the problems have existed for some time as many of the issues raised were recognised in the MWH 2003 Strategic Corridor Study and the 2006 Transport Strategy.
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7.1 Risk/Issues and Opportunities
Key risks for this business case are likely to include:
● Alignment with Regional Land Transport Plan and Council’s Long Term Plan Timeframes
● Ability for Council to raise funding co-contribution
● Support for the projects from Councillors
● Support for the projects from the community
● Further deaths and serious injuries from crashes should the project not proceed
Appropriate risk management strategies for these key risks will be identified at the Programme Business Case stage. As the busine ss case evolves and projects are defined it is likely that other risks are likely to be identified and these will be added to the risk register.
Read full report here.
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█ Dunedin City Integrated Transport Strategy 2013
Developing, maintaining and operating any transport system requires investment, and investment requires decision-making about what to invest in, how much to invest and when that investment should be made. Such decisions need to be informed by an understanding of the key issues and opportunities to be addressed, a clear vision of what is to be achieved, and a clear set of priorities that will move toward that vision. In times of financial constraint when funding is tight the need to clearly identify the right priorities becomes even more important. The DCC have adopted a Financial Strategy which aims to help steer a course between the competing tensions of affordability, keeping up and investing for the future. This Financial Strategy states the limits to rates and borrowing that the Council has set, and any investment in transportation infrastructure must be managed with regard to the Financial Strategy.
Dunedin City Integrated Transport Strategy 2013 [links]
Pre-election Report 2.8.13 [links]
Financial Strategy
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
{Post at top of thread restored after Autosave lag removed text sections and formatting. -Eds}
JUST MAKE ME ANGRY. The city is for people with cars or without them Get used to it. We will always need our cars for transporting our kids and older people and for carrying our shopping and for getting to and from work
STUPID STAFF ASSUMPTIONS
► There is too much parking in Dunedin
► Restricted parking will increase use of public transport
► Encouraging more people to cycle makes roads safer
One of them is a possibility – ► Restricted parking will increase use of public transport.
People who must travel will look to alternative ways of travelling and I doubt if many of them will choose cycling. Others will take on board the wartime message “Is your journey really necessary?” and make more use of the internet for shopping, even shopping for gifts because the sellers usually offer the service of delivering the goods to another person, gift wrapped even! Businesses on the outskirts are likely to benefit, anywhere with parking will benefit. The cost of parking added to the annoyance of not being able to find a convenient park make it cost-neutral to travel to another centre or suburb. With increased demand the smart operator in a corner shop will stock, or be willing to order, goods that are more exotic than the old bread, milk, sugar, baked beans.
This is where the Unintended Consequences Assessor should be called in, before there’s another cockup.
The UCA job has real appeal, oh wait isn’t that the chief executive’s proper role ?
Please, may the public see the INCREASING EXTENT of RED TAPE.
Dunedin IS NOT growing. There is no additional pressure on the roading system. Yeah the DCC can iron out some kinks to enhance flow but the rest is BS.
Firing up your bulldozers and excavators to surround and nip at the heels of the Civic Centre, whilst tearing apart councillor and staff parking… opportunity awaits.
Re “Problem three: Management and provision of car parking is not integrated into the transport network, which favours car use, impacting adversely on the quality of life in the City”
I’m sorry, I grew up to believe that cars/vehicles ARE about independence and quality of life, whether for town or country. Most New Zealanders think that, especially new and used car salespeople ~!!!
In my youth I decided to travel overseas rather than buy a car, when I returned a car seemed unattractive for village life at mouldering Dunners. BUT… I defend the right of all New Zealanders to park their vehicles safely in built-up activity areas and thus planned provision MUST be made for convenience and free or paid parking.
(blistering) My simple logic is not DCC’s, not ORC’s, not CoC’s… or that of the et al frigging steak munchers.
Once again the unelected ‘meddlers, improvers and self appointed harbingers of what is best for we citizens’ are rampant. They never see a situation which couldn’t be made better nor an opportunity to meddle which should be ignored. They produce ‘humbug’ by the truckload and dump it in front of a hapless council which, dazzled by the enormity of the voluminous reports, unconsciously vote (with two abstentions from the only alert members) to progress the stupid revisions of what would appear to be a suitable present state of affairs. One old retread of no known expertise in the subject ‘touts’ for it and our farmer chairman says it will be debated at length in the fullness of time. Again, a mess of costs and wastage with no obvious benefits accruing to the citizens.
If there really is too much public parking in Dunedin then I expect the first thing the city can do is to bring back all the disabled parking spaces they removed a few years ago – of course removing them was really a revenue push in the first place
Thanks Mike. I had no idea that DCC had removed disabled parks. How gutless and despicable!
It was done during the last big rejiggering of parking where all the loading zones were turned into “special permit required” zones (ie business only, not available for citizens who want to do loading/unloading)
They didn’t quite remove all the disabled parks, there are a handful left, about half around the Uni – but there used to be roughly one on every block. They were replaced with a city permit that allows one to park long term without paying in existing parks – but free parking’s not very useful if you can only walk 100m and all the spaces are full.
BTW the cycle lane proposals would nuke many of the disabled parks left around the hospital.
Here is an ODT comment from 2009 to remind us that the problem with extremist attitudes at DCC Transportation Planning is not new and remains a difficult one to solve. For the good of the city we do need to get it fixed. As a result of the 2009 DCC car-hate campaign Council staff removed about 430 car parks from the CBD. Since then their Jihad on car drivers and passengers has continued with more parks removed at every opportunity. South Dunedin is a recent example. The DCC staff and Mayor Cull’s obsessional and idealistic plans are the most serious threat to Dunedin City and the well-being of the citizens. Don’t worry about earthquakes and floods when you have got Dave Cull and his merry band of car-hating Taliban. No answers were given to the following questions.
From the ODT – Students struggling with parking in campus area (25 Jul 2009):
Questions for the DCC – For the record
Submitted by JimmyJones on Mon, 27/07/2009 – 6:50pm.
Richard Walls is talking about residents’ parking, but this was just a red herring thrown in by the DCC’s Development Services Manager. The article highlights the serious problems facing students caused by an absence of parks. The thing that has changed isn’t residents’ parking, it’s the DCC’s new Parking Strategy. This has caused kaos all over the city. Even though I asked nicely, there were no answers to the following questions. This is from Students struggling with parking in campus area (25 Jul 2009) :
Although Mr Walls wasn’t part of the Parking Working Party, I am pleased he is paying attention and I hope he can find the answers to these questions –
– Why has the DCC reduced the number of parks for private cars by about 20% (total parks, all 4 zones including campus area. Was- 2448 parks; new target- 2018 aprox)?
– On-street Parking in the 4 zones was 70% occupied overall- Why has the DCC decided that it wants them to be only 20% to 40% occupied?
– Why has the DCC removed 85% of Time-Restricted parking (P30, P120 etc)?
– Why has the DCC completely removed long-stay free parks from anywhere suitable for student and commuter parking (zones 1,2,3,4)?
– The DCC’s latest LTCCP recognises that we want more parks, and the 2009 ROS additionally includes cheaper parking, how does your famous plan help us with these things?
– What is “Travel Demand Management” and “Mode Change” and wouldn’t it have been polite to ask before inflicting this type of thing on us (we might not want our modes changed)?
– Why should any of us put up with this? The changes are all pain and no gain. More cost, fewer parks, unsuitable types of parking and “mode change”.
I look forward to some answers, thanks. JJ
JimmyJones, what you document here about loss of parking is hateful. An impractical planner-bludgeoned tinkerfest of revenue generation to pay for those shiny new salaries and coffee and gift cards for staff, or rather the poodle stadium under slush-fund-DVML/DVL/DCHL control.
Dunedin should not be the hellhole DCC has created.
Good to see letters to the ODT editor today by Ian Pillans and Robyn Thomson. HOWEVER…
The subeditor styled the prominent headline ‘Further support for city’s cyclways’ to cover these letters. WTF.
{*As supplied, the letter from DCC’s Jon Visser is retained FYI. -Eds}
### ODT Online Thu, 8 May 2014
Cycle-lane proposal approved
By Rebecca Fox
New Zealand Transport Agency’s highway and network operations had applied to the Otago Regional Transport Committee to include in the Regional Land Transport Programme for 2012-15 a proposal to develop the cycle lane options. To do so, the programme had to be varied by up to $1 million, which the committee approved last month.
Read more
### ODT Online Thu, 8 May 2014
Upper Junction Rd open
Upper Junction Rd, above Sawyers Bay, has been reopened after being closed for nearly a year by a large slip. Dunedin City Council roading maintenance engineer Peter Standring said it was one of the largest slips the council had dealt with, and had cost more than $400,000 to repair.
Read more
At the Infrastructure And Services Committee meeting on Monday Lee Vandervis highlighted this part of the Strategic Case:
Providing too much parking encourages car dependency and perpetuates reliance on motorised vehicles. (ISC report 5/5/14).
Council staff made it clear that this is official DCC policy. They prefer to be subtle about it, but the transport planner at the meeting didn’t understand “subtle” and was shut down on two occasions for being too truthful (once by her manager and once by Tony Avery). Councillors were instructed to disregard the planner’s “personal view”. On both occasions she was answering Lee Vandervis’ questions: she told us that Dunedin’s parking is too cheap and there is too much parking. Parking price and quantity are tools that should be used to force people out of their cars into buses. She talked about commuting to work and parking your car in town all day as if it was a crime against humanity – that line of thought was ended by Tony Avery.
I think the word “unreconstructed” would describe our overly truthful transport planner. She has given us a glimpse into the thinking of DCC City/Transport Planning.
The ODT reporter seems to have not heard some parts of the meeting. Unfortunately there were no TV cameras there and so no YouTube video.
That last fact about no camera presence [having accepted the horror presenting in the person of the female transport planner which can be either of two people, therefore the unique identity may be precisely deduced] is something I will take up with GM Sandy Graham directly.
Let’s hope that the lack of TV cameras was temporary. The horror isn’t any individual planner, but that their policies have become so far removed from reality. I blame Tony Avery and Greater Dunedin.
Tends to show the lack of experience and critical awareness of said individual planner – such that you would expect of a planning professional working for an LTA – in what is clearly a climate of utter LUNACY. So yes, agree re Avery and ‘GD-who?!’.
“Providing too much parking encourages car dependency and perpetuates reliance on motorised vehicles.”
And how many of the businesses in Dunedin rely on people who get to their premises using motorised vehicles? What “unintended consequences” might result from vigorous discouragement of ” car dependency and … reliance on motorised vehicles”? How do business operators, and owners-ratepayers of business premises, and employers and employees feel about this?
“She talked about commuting to work and parking your car in town all day as if it was a crime against humanity.” Aren’t we lucky Hillside closed down! Let’s celebrate unemployment, with its glorious reduction in the numbers of people commuting to work.
Parked cars must be discouraged. “Dunedin’s parking is too cheap and there is too much parking.” Reduce the amount of parking and you reduce the number of parked cars because they’re spending longer on the move, circling the block until a place to park can be found and the human(s) inside can get on with work or shopping or going to a movie.
Going to a movie indeed! Why don’t they stay home and watch a video, haven’t they worked out how to get free downloads?
Silly girl! does she think people bring their cars to town just to clutter up the parks? Would she rather turn the clocks back and we all arrive on horse back or in horse and gig? Or better still, on push bike. Of course if Dunedin is to still remain viable then the people will have buy the ‘gee gaws’ in the shops and then somehow take them home. There really is a limit to how many bags of groceries and ‘flat screens’ one can balance on the handle bars of the bike and then peddle off home along SH1.
Calvin: I don’t think that their “vision” includes flatscreen TVs because plastic is made from oil – and also in Jinty’s new energy plan there might not be enough electricity with their plan to de-energize the city (aka “energy decent”).
City Planning’s vision for the city is of Dunedin as a small town of maybe 100 people – like an Amish community. The fact that their vision doesn’t fit reality is of no consequence to them, the ideology is what is important. This is also Dave Cull’s vision and the car-less town is only one aspect. It seems like our evangelical staff and councillors want us to be neo-hippy, Transition-Town survivalist, back to nature anti-capitalists.
The obvious question is why don’t they all fkuc off back to where they came from, or start a hippy commune far away from here (Fiordland perhaps) where they can enjoy communal living and we can continue with our lives unmolested by these loonatics.
I think we should agree with the philosophies of the DCC, as outlined by the only honest spokesman? working for the DCC. Ban all DCC employees from driving to work.
We know that at least one commuter will be gone soon, the honest one.
Let’s have the others who are unable to get to work by Dunedin’s almost non-existent public transport system down the road also.
That would help greatly in solving the debt problem.
Just as an aside, there is a rumour that traffic lights are not stopping enough inbound traffic, so the traffic light department are studying the slip in St Leonards to determine whether such slips could be induced at strategic points. Portsmouth Drive, Caversham, Kaikorai Valley, Wakari Hospital and Pine Hill are distinct possibilities. Once these slips have been evaluated ($2 million), brought into action ($100 million), pesky parkers will be eliminated. Oh and finally, bike shops will be happy, Spokes will be promoting crampons which will be necessary for bikers using the cycleways up the slips.
I think all the council jobs where a vehicle, usually a van or truck, is necessary have been contracted out with the exception of animal control. So John P Evans’ suggestion has considerable merit. There is no need for DCC, council, vehicles for the others. Many people are on call and have to get to their place of work as best they can, possibly the cost of a taxi is reimbursed when they cannot plan in advance allowing time for walking, cycling or catching a bus. Likewise DCC car parks only encourage private car use. Search and sometimes walk a long way from the parking space they find, just like the rest of us!
Dunedin City Council media releases (9.5.14):
█ Travel Survey Vital for Future Planning
Some Dunedin households will be surveyed about their travel patterns as part of key planning for future travel demand. The Dunedin City Council will work with a survey team led by PlanTrans over the next eight months to gather information about how Dunedin residents choose to travel to and from home, work, schools and shopping centres.
Read more at http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/your-council/latest-news/may-2014/travel-survey-vital-for-future-planning
█ DCC to Discuss Public Transport Issues
Who should run Dunedin’s buses will be a topic for discussion at next week’s Dunedin City Council Annual Plan deliberations. At its 7 May meeting, the Otago Regional Council confirmed its belief the governance of public transport fitted more appropriately with the DCC. The ORC has written to the DCC offering to transfer responsibility for public transport planning and operations to the DCC. A DCC staff report to be discussed at the deliberations, suggests the Council supports, in principle, the transfer of governance of public transport from the ORC to the DCC. This would be subject to further work being completed, including consultation with the community.
Read more at http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/your-council/latest-news/may-2014/dcc-to-discuss-public-transport-issues
Jinty and the other climate change, global warming, anthropogenic madmen are wasting their time trying to encourage non-use of cars in Dunedin.
The reality is that China, India, and the rest of the world are going to do what they have always done, no matter what Jinty says or does. The social engineering is merely going to annoy, interfere and get in the way of the peaceful life of the rest of us.
This type of announcement demionstrates that they are all cast in exactly the same mould as Don Quixote – tilting at windmills, farting against thunder, and wasting our time, our money and their sanity.
Click to access 20140509_081929_TI6_G3PHNGLW9UVJBO4G.1.pdf
MAJOR ROADING CHANGES PUSHED BY DCC STAFF (what’s new)
As tabled at the DCC Infrastructure Services Committee meeting on 2 September.
Read: Greater Dunedin continues to screw with us.
Report – ISC – 02/09/2014 (PDF, 553.4 KB)
Transportation – 10 Year New Capital Programme
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### dunedintv.co.nz September 5, 2014 – 5:52pm
DCC hopes to attract investment from the NZTA
The Dunedin City Council is making a bid for funding, in the next round of allocations from the New Zealand Transport Agency. The council has to submit its preferred transportation projects by the end of the month. And councillors have identified several which they hope will attract investment from the national agency over the next decade.
Video
Such a tricky situation, when the guy who was employed to run DCC during the Citifleet fraud is now the guy responsible for NZTA Southern region…
The idea of converting Crawford Street from its present one way north part of SH1 to two ways, is an interesting concept. How the city’s expert traffic folk came up with this is intriguing. When one looks at the system which has evolved over a good many years, now being consolidated at Caversham, to whimsically put a complication back in seems nonsensical. If the Queens Gardens / Oval section is changed, is the Cumberland St section also being changed? If not, does this mean the double lane SH1 concept has a single lane popped in the middle? What happens immediately north and south of this Crawford St change? How does the south bound Crawford St traffic access ? Indeed how does it exit? How does that compacted north bound traffic re-integrate into two lanes past the Queens Gardens without confrontation with that wishing to enter Crawford St travelling south? Does the multilane traffic coming off the motorway onto Andersons Bay Rd traveling north, all converge into one lane before entering Crawford St? How, bearing in mind the oncoming south bound flow seeking a way out at the Oval end? It seems that the traffic planners have been mesmerised over the cycle fad presently dominating all thinking in the city. Perhaps the department would be better employed studying the nesting habits of blackbirds.
Over breakfast I took the opportunity of reading the Transport Planning projections as outlined in Report — ISC– 02/09/2014. It is an interesting read in as much as it illuminates the thinking within. The lead-in states: “Dunedin is one of the world’s great small cities, with a safe, low-carbon transport system that supports a compact city with ‘resilient’ centres, inclusive and healthy communities, and national and international connectivity.” Wow! that’s a great build up for our egos.
The section headed: Focus: Strategic Direction and Goals. Is straight out of ‘Agenda 21’. The safety strategy is aimed at: ‘By 2024 the number of fatalities and serious injury crashes to be cut by 50% from 2014 levels.’ Correct me if I am wrong, but has there been any fatalities this year? I seem to recall it was 2013 when multiple events happened. If this is so, then they are well on the way to achieving their 2024 target by 2015. Brilliant!
The concept of bypassing freight to Port Chalmers via Strathallen, Portsmouth Drive, Roberts and St Andrew Sts, onto Anzac Ave from the Andersons Bay Rd end of the motorway is laudable. But will it make that much difference? Surely, if they were serious about congestion, why not co-operate with KiwiRail and offload all Port bound freight onto flatdeck wagons at Mosgiel or (Dunedin from north) and rail direct into Port. Win win I would have thought.
Then there is the fact that one only needs to watch the SH1 system through Dunedin to realise that most heavy traffic simply passes through from both directions. And the number is quite staggering both day and night. So how does the aforementioned bypass assist that? The idea of converting Crawford St to two-way can only create a bottleneck and dangerous confusion. The adding in of cycleways just compounds the situation, probably enhancing the chances of adding more fatal and serious injury accidents, rather than meeting any meaningless targets of reduction.
Then of course there the budgets proposed to fulfill all these notions. For a city that is teetering on bankruptcy, one would think any responsible administration would be concentrating on getting the financial house in order before embarking on all these non-essential undertakings which in the end are not going to make one whit of difference to this, “world’s great little city”.
Dunedin’s “national and international connectivity” is superb, almost on a par with the Kimberley’s connectivity with the Falklands. NZ Post’s improved service means that it takes about the same time for a letter to get from St Kilda to Andersons Bay as to Adelaide, how great is that?