Development at Matiatia, cycleways, road closures, speed restrictions, speed bumps, the establishment of park and rides, public vs private transport - all of these issues have been debated in recent years and are likely to continue to be hot topics in the term of the new community board. This forum is a place to air opinions on those issues.
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Island Life
Transport and Parking options
Yesterday's public meeting organised by Gulf News was an excellent opportunity for the public to see the candidates in action working as a team considering local issues. One of the issues involved options for the long and short term as part of a 10yr regional transport strategy. This was by far the most complex debate of the day and brought out many useful points. There is an enormous opportunity here for more creative solutions, getting away from the tried and false one of cars cars cars and roads.
The need for a major overhaul of our public transport was highlighted by everyone I heard. The need to make public transport so attractive that people will want to leave their expensive 1 ton personal carriers at home. This requires us to think outside the square.
An option that met with approval was the recentralising of our public system from Matiatia to Ostend or Ostend and Surfdale. In this way the big buses would be doing shorter runs to a terminus from where smaller shuttles would run to community centres. The terminus would be a hub and shuttles would run from here much more frequently so that people could go from Rocky Bay to Palm Beach or Onetangi to Rocky Bay without having to wait an hour, go to Matiatia and back again. Fullers need not be the only operator when privat operators could run the shuttles services.
Park and ride options would then become much more attractive and the big busses would not be compromising our road safety on back roads.
Spending our money wisely is always a top priority. We have seen too much money wasted in recent years on grandiose overspecification projects that are not appropriate to our island character. Decisions and plans made locally will help. Help our Local Board to lobby the council for return of control.
Only the City Council does not know that Oneroa is our gateway and that Matiatia is our carpark to go to Auckland. But maybe with better public transport organisation and one that doesn not just serve the ferries we can come up with some solutions that do not mean bigger carparks.
Andy Spence
Local Board Candidate
Cycling
HiJaffa
Yes cycling is of particular interest to me because I see it as a viable alternative to needing a second car. I think you would find there are plenty of other families out there interested in that cost saving. How could Herb possibly recommend? Well let us see shall we? After 6 years as our transport delegate, you would hope he would have picked up some ideas around the issue. Though perhaps not.
By the way, Council has informed us that the extra cost of adding cycle width to theOcean View Rd
Before you blame cycle facilities for being a costly extravagance, it’s worth finding out about how our roads are funded.
Tom
So you don't have two cars
So you don't have two cars Tom??
No in fact I have quite a
No in fact I have quite a number of rusty heaps I can access for parts and a campervan I use for, well camping mostly. The key thing is on a small island cycling is a viable way for at least one partner in a family to get about, take the kids to school etc. Sadly though you have to be brave to do so on our busier roads. Why should we have to put up with that when this marginalisation has only happened due to poorly designed roading 'improvements'? All we want are options - they don't all have to be gold plated off road solutions either.
Tom