#OldHat Dunedin bus system hard to use and unaffordable

Lynley Hood is a positive advocate for her area, no doubt – but hopefully she can think more widely than Corstorphine, to the provision of fair and equitable public transport for The Many, wherever they live in Dunedin, who struggle to pay standard fares or top up the ‘dumb’ Go Card —or who have no bus service to their streets at decent intervals with timely transfer options for necessary travel destinations [the currently ‘immovable’ ORC system].

Or thank god, there’s hail apps.

[Is Otago Regional Council up with the technology about to change public transport @ New Zealand —thereby cancelling any profit from the ill-thought diesel-breathing bus hub planned for Great King St in Central Dunedin.]

Black car service [uberinternal.com]

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When a new flexible bus ticketing system is introduced early next year in Dunedin and the Queenstown area, consideration would be given to introducing a lower $5 top-up for Go Cards for online payments. –ORC

### ODT Online Tue, 6 Jun 2017
Bus discounts asked of ORC
By John Gibb
Kew resident Lynley Hood is urging the Otago Regional Council to introduce a community services card bus discount to help “transport disadvantaged” people in Dunedin. “Public transport is important for all sorts of reasons, certainly for inclusiveness and giving everybody a chance,” Dr Hood said. If you’re going to proceed with education and get a job, you’ve got to have transport. It’s got to be attractive to everybody, so it works for the people who need it.” She often saw bus users checking their small change to see if they could afford to use the bus, and clearly not everyone could. She has been suggesting this extension of the bus discount system, and other improvements in the Corstorphine bus service, for several years, and made a detailed submission to the council in 2014. More Corstorphine residents would be encouraged to switch to Go Cards by providing the suggested discount for community services card holders, and cutting the minimum Go Card top-up payment from $10 to $5, she said.
Read more

Radiohead Published on Jun 2, 2017
Radiohead – I Promise
I Promise is one of 3 previously unreleased tracks from the album OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 – 2017.

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“Transportation companies compete for customers, and ultimately it is the consumer who makes the choice.” –Chicago’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection

“Were the old deemed to have a constitutional right to preclude the entry of the new into the markets of the old, economic progress might grind to a halt,” Judge Richard Posner wrote in the 7th Circuit decision. “Instead of taxis we might have horse and buggies; instead of the telephone, the telegraph; instead of computers, slide rules.”

### usatoday.com 4:47 p.m. ET 5 Jun 2017 | Updated
Chicago cabbies say industry is teetering toward collapse
By Aamer Madhani
CHICAGO — Operators of the nation’s second-biggest taxi fleet are now accelerating toward their long-rumoured extinction, edging towards becoming virtual dinosaurs in the era of ride-sharing monsters Uber and Lyft. Cabbies have long grumbled that the sky is falling as they lose ground to ride-sharing companies. Now, cabbies in Chicago are pointing to new data that suggests the decline could be speeding up. About 42% of Chicago’s taxi fleet was not operating in the month of March, and cabbies have seen their revenue slide for their long-beleaguered industry by nearly 40% over the last three years as riders are increasingly ditching cabs for ride-hailing apps Uber, Lyft and Via, according to a study released Monday by the Chicago cab drivers union. More than 2,900 of Chicago’s nearly 7,000 licensed taxis were inactive in March 2017 — meaning they had not picked up a fare in a month, according to the Cab Drivers United/AFSCME Local 2500 report. The average monthly income per active medallion — the permit that gives cabbies the exclusive right to pick up passengers who hail them on the street — has dipped from $5,276 in January 2014 to $3,206 this year. The number of riders in Chicago hailing cabs has also plummeted during that same period from 2.3 million monthly riders to about 1.1 million. Declining ridership for Chicago’s taxi industry comes as foreclosures are piling up for taxi medallion owners who aren’t generating enough fares to keep up with their loan payments and meet their expenses.
….Chicago cabbies aren’t alone in feeling the pinch. In New York, ridership in the city’s iconic yellow cabs has fallen about 30% over the last three years. Last year, San Francisco’s Yellow Cab — the city’s largest taxi company — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Los Angeles taxi ridership fell 43%, and revenue was down 24%, between 2013 and 2016.
Read more

█ Medallion Report (FINAL)

[watch video] Fox 32 : Chicago taxi drivers: Industry is teetering toward collapse
Posted: Jun 05 2017 09:50PM CDT | Updated

New York, the new normal….

Motherboard Published on May 27, 2016
Is Uber Killing the Yellow Taxi in New York City?
As Uber’s stranglehold over the taxi industry increases, some New York yellow cab dispatchers have found themselves in an unprecedented predicament: sitting on millions of dollars worth of medallion yellow cabs, but not enough drivers to drive them.

█ Wikipedia: Taxicab regulation

Related Post and Cimments
8.12.16 Our loss-making public bus system, as for the colours *spew
20.11.16 Dunedin Buses – Route planners don’t consider effects on local business
11.8.16 Tesla Motors to open new location every four days #electrictravel
21.3.16 Uber travel

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

Things you can do with a field #1

Take a famous baseball field, throw in some innovative marketers, change the sport and there you have it, the 2009 NHL Winter Classic.

(front page Chicago Tribune Jan 1 2009)

Taking a cue from the Canadian Heritage Classic, the Winter Classic is a new tradition in the NHL (Ice Hockey to you and me, Hockey to North Americans), in which two teams are pitted against each other in a traditional and somewhat perilous out door arena, evoking the heritage and history of the fine sport of Ice Hockey.

This year the game is to be held at the distinctly single use stadium (in the Rob Hamlin sense of the word), the historical and distinguished home of the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field. In a little over 2 weeks, Wrigley Field was transformed into a competitive Ice Hockey arena, from that of a baseball field.

Why am I on about this, simply because people say that the new Carisbrook stadium won’t be used for anything other than 6-12 games of rugby a year, and that’s all. While others of us with a modicum of interest in seeing this thing succeed have suggested that the worlds your oyster when it comes to what we could host at this new fine stadium of ours. It has been suggested in the past that we could hold big Ice Hockey matches there (exhibition or International). People who have poo pooed this suggestion, make the point that there is a very good Ice Stadium in Dunedin. Indeed there is, the quality of the ice is almost unsurpassed in NZ, while the boards (and the glass you look through) is Olympic quality. Only problem, there’s seating for, I don’t know, 150 people (tongue in cheek). I’ve previously suggested that this stadium will succeed only on the innovative marketing and stadium management needed in the modern entertainment world, and I still firmly believe this today.

So just as Chicago is home to the perfectly good 22,000 capacity United Centre (ok massive understatement), home of the NBA’s Chicago Bulls and NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks (designed by our very own HOK sport in 1992), yet they decide to play an exhibition game in the freezing cold (last time I looked it was minus 12C in the midday sun), why for marketing and innovation, and the NHL record crowd for a regular season game – 71,000 last Jan 1.

Don’t believe me that this is big in Chicago, go over the the Tribune’s web site, it’s on the front page, and they are making a big deal of it, rolling out past legends from Chicago etc. This is a nice graphic of how to turn a single use stadium into a ‘field of dreams’ for a big show, and of course a graphic showing how to keep ice cold on a grass surface.

Chicago Tribune

Again why is this interesting? Simply because the ‘mini winter Olymics’ to be held in Otago over the next few years will of course. The $5m dollar even will attract 700 competitors from 30 countries, and of course the events will be held all over Otago, at the best venues. Simply put 1+1 together and if anyone with a half innovative marketing brain could tell you, if they can do it on grass in Chicago, then we can do it on grass in NZ.

This is possibly just one of dozens of reasons why the stadium must be built and the very best marketing and stadium management team be assembled. Like the O2 arena in London and Rogers Centre in Toronto, the success or failure of such venues comes down more or less to management and marketing, of which the rest of the world doesn’t hold a monopoly on.

Only shame is Sky in it’s infinite wisdom doesn’t deem Ice Hockey a big enough sport to play on TV here in NZ. I’ll have to rely on podcasts and all manner of web tools to catch the game early morning 2nd Jan (for us in NZ).

why not, just because we can and there might be other Hockey fans out there, here are the highlights from that game.