### ODT Online Tue, 3 Jun 2014
Opinion
Transport strategy must respect personal needs
By Phil Cole
Dunedin has its own unique geographic, demographic and historical features that make any transportation planning in the city reliant on forward-thinking, rather than academic theoretical practices. The historical past of Dunedin’s transportation, however, should only be ignored at its peril. It is vitally important for Dunedin’s direction that any long-term transport planning is determined not by short-term populist ideas but by long-term growth, based on economic conditions, city development and people’s habits. It is equally important council land-use planning is closely aligned to, but does not determine, how the city can be rejuvenated.
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Riccarton Rd resident Brian Miller said the council was not trying to reach a fair and reasonable settlement and valuations were being forced on landowners.
### ODT Online Wed, 4 Jun 2014
Offers prepared for land
By Shawn McAvinue
The land needed to widen Riccarton Rd will be obtained by statutory authority if a mutual agreement can not be met, Dunedin City Council roading projects engineer Evan Matheson says. […] Some landowners were hesitant to make land available, he said.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
### dunedintv.co.nz June 5, 2014 – 7:07pm
Mayor Dave Cull rides in support of new cycle networks
Dave Cull was one of many to jump on a bike in support of the new South Dunedin Cycle Network. Part one of the network is almost complete, and a ride this morning served to familiarise riders with new routes. And after years of work, Cull hopes the changes will see more people leave their cars at home.
Video
http://www.dunedintv.co.nz/content/mayor-dave-cull-rides-support-new-cycle-networks
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Oh boy, let’s go cycling, we can all look like the Daaave-plonker in our helmets and dayglo. FO Mr Mayor.
DCC Media Release 4.6.14
Rides on New Cycleways
A series of community bike rides is being held to help familiarise people with the new South Dunedin Cycle Network.
http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/your-council/latest-news/june-2014/community-rides-on-new-cycleways
In the Ch39 video of the ‘cycle tour’ at South Dunedin today, Cull finds another moment to show how pissed off he is with his detractors. It’s a classic moment. “We established long ago that a) there was a demand, and b) there was a need, ah, to give people choices.” […] Oh look there’s always going to be an extreme minority, a loud extreme minority, who won’t accept what the community has decided, but you just move on.” Etc…..
(did your Mayor just squash the good people of South Dunedin that don’t want the Spokes-imposed amenities that destroy their streets and impose greater safety risks and property and road access issues with the most minimal form of public consultation Sarah Connolly could arrange at her pleasure, and Daaave’s ???).
How many cyclists took the tour? – a “huge proportion” …. all of about nine or ten riders. Jeepers, Daaave’s looking awfully haggard these days. No wonder he’s a bit down and ascerbic, at a cost of $4.5 million for the South Dunedin Cycle Network only nine or ten people turned up who mostly don’t live in South Dunedin. Enough to make you cry, Daaave. We know.
Yes wasn’t it uncanny how very Through the Looking-Glass he was, our Daaave, peddler of extraordinary fictions.
Demand, minority:
~~When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.~~
And,
~~Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”~~
Perfectly apt, Hype O’Thermia. Hah!
I noticed that Daave was wearing one of those suicyclist outfits – dark trousers, jacket that had red shoulders and sleeves but from the back, when he was on the bike, showed only black fabric to anyone on the road behind him. The hi-vis outfits didn’t look very hi-vis either. It’s not always easy to tell in daylight, they look very bright and fluorescent but at night they don’t reflect or glow. Then put a dim-coloured backpack over them, and be equipped with the average amount of bike lights i.e. one, front OR back. The survival-minded cyclists’ bright lights fore and aft visible from far enough away for other road users to take the cyclist’s presence into consideration, account for the average being that high. Clothing with reflective strips is very good. The strip material, about 50mm wide, is available by the metre from industrial safety shops. If I were to take up cycling I’d have it glued to every possible part of my bike and sewn onto back-pack and fluoro vest, because as a motorist I am now so acutely aware of how close to invisible cyclists are on the road at dusk, at night, and in the rain when all the lights from buildings, vehicles and street lighting are multiplied in the reflections in the wet road surface. A wee bike light is scarcely noticeable at all, and the suicyclists in their navy, charcoal and black garb are lit only by their inner glow of planet-saving compensatory entitlement, i.e. invisible to others.
My latest experience with cyclists in Dunedin is worth relating. I was driving my car down Jetty Street towards Crawford Street on Thursday morning round 8.30am to make a left hand turn to go north on the one-way. Over the intersection coming off the bridge from Portsmouth Drive was an orderly double lane of cars. The right hand lane of this traffic is used by vehicles turning right into Crawford Street.
Lo and behold, down the bridge comes a cyclist – lane threading between the lanes of vehicles. When this middle aged man gets to the head of the queue waiting at the lights he pulls over IN FRONT of all the right-turning traffic. The lights go green, I turn left and cyclist, turning right in his endeavour to get into the cycle lane and thereby cutting across both lanes, tries to cut me off and then gives me the fingers.
Could have been Dave himself, but I suspect not because the twerp eventually caught up with me along the north end of the road near the University. Why this twerp didn’t go along the much safer route behind the railway station is unfathomable.
Apart from the idiotic, and rule-breaking behaviour of this twerp, it showed up the idiotic stance being pursued by the DCC in their road management. Like it or not, cyclists and motorised vehicles are potentially a fatal mix and anyone who knowingly plans and executes systems to put them together to make a political or philosophical point are directly to blame for any subsequent injury or fatality.
It has not yet been explained just why the SH1 philosophy is being so dogmatically pursued. I suspect madness.
One comforting result, Russell, lies in the old adage “you get what you pays for”. The Luni cyclists will reap the “benefits” of their collective wisdom. It is us the naysayers that should attend the inevitable funerals literally counting down the madmen or is it ma’persons. The danger is that we might see it on TV at the Milton Hilton!
I learned something watching that Ch39 video. Our Mayor Dave Cull can ride a bike! And he didn’t have trainer wheels. As Russell suggests, and I fully concur, the deaths on SH1 will, by the laws of probability still occur. Mayor Cull will no doubt express remorse and might even go to the funerals. On his bike if course.
Riccarton Road. If you believe in what Evan Matheson has said on the subject. Then you would believe in fairies.