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Out of a city of tens of thousands, you have hundreds of submissions! Worth some investigation, which was done back in 1995 when the Permissions Process at Wellington City Council was redesigned. The survey of residents and ratepayers included a question that asked “under what circumstances would you consider making a submission on an application for a resource consent?” The winning option, by a country mile, was “when I disagree with what is being proposed”. Next was ‘when it concerns my immediate neighborhood or street’, last was ‘when I am aware submissions can be made’. What this indicates to me, is that the fewer submission that are received, the more people agree with what is being proposed, making the ‘hundreds’ a catastrophic minority for the greens’ position on this matter!

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unfortunately due to the demographics (population densities, work flow patterns, distribution points, etc. of New Zealand and in particular Auckland.

So unless you can persuade the local councils to allow subdivision of the quater acre section, install the sewerage, water, electricity, transposr, etc infastructure to service the high density cities you so desire, private and individual transport will always be the best option.

Be it cars or horses.

A public transport system like they have in Europe is not an option. Just on capital cost alone you could not put it in, let alone generate the patronage to pay for maintenenance.

New Zealand is too sparsely populated, too far flung in development, too diverse in individual transport needs, to fund a fully intergrated public transport system.

As I challenge the Greens on any number of accasions, do the sums, set a budget and see what effect this will have on the economy.

When your worst case scenario

completely oblivious to the problem of oil depletion and global warming and now a collapsing world economy.

becomes true, even public transport will grind to a halt as we wont have the income to sustain it.

In your senario, spending money on roads or public tranport, if your scenario comes true, are both futile.

So best we do nothing.

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What’s crazy about spending billions of dollars of roading revenue on more roads?

I thought LRT had been given the boot so I can’t quite see the relevance of the statement “That we are seriously considering spending literally billions of dollars on this outmoded and destructive and unsustainable and unaffordable form of transport is nothing short of crazy.”

If we added a dollar to the price of a litre of petrol to subsidise trains, just like they do in Europe then maybe we too could have 8% of travel by train and only 79% by car. The other 13% is accounted for by all other modes including planes.

To the extent that taking away cars takes away transportation, the message makes sense. To the extent that single use zoning emasculates every other mode the message makes no sense.

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That we are seriously considering spending literally billions of dollars on this outmoded and destructive and unsustainable and unaffordable form of transport is nothing short of crazy. Out society’s attachment to the private motor vehicle is a pathologic addiction that is ruining our cities, our economy and our planet and constructing yet more roads, and accommodating yet more traffic, is the transport equivalent of giving a junky another fix, when we desperately be getting the patient off his self-destructive habit.

Every transport planner should be required to write a thousand times, or as long as necessary for the message to eventually get through:

Cars are not the solution to our transport problems, they are the problem.
Cars are not the solution to our transport problems, they are the problem.
Cars are not the solution to our transport problems, they are the problem.
Cars are not the solution to our transport problems, they are the problem. etc.

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I have just returned from 3 days in Auckland, having not been there for a while. Every time I visit, the roading system is better, but the traffic is worse. When will people realise that more roads is not the way to solve traffic congestion.

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“Wonder how much the Labour party will take notice of the Greens if and when they win an election.”

If it takes Labour plus Greens to form a majority in parliament, then the answer to that is “a great deal”.

If Labour doesn’t need the Greens to have a majority then the answer is “see 2005-2008″ (i.e. hardly at all.)

Primary school maths.

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Peak oil??? OPEC is struggling to keep the price above $50/barrel and you are talking peak oil

I’d be embarrassed to show such ignorance Bryan

Peak oil is all about supply, not price. Price is determined by supply and demand (and speculation) – and global demand is down.

BTW, this leaked from the upcoming IEA World Energy Outlook

…the IEA’s final version of the report continues to hold that world oil production will soon be declining at 6 to 9 percent a year … should have a major impact on governmental thinking about the future of energy….The report says that investments of $360 billion per year for the next 22 years will be necessary to keep production up with the demand from developing nations and that even with these large investments the annual rate of output decline will be 6.4 percent

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/vote08/4745675a28477.html

Not a good week for the Green’s public transport innitiative.

Wonder how much the Labour party wuill take notice of the Greens if and when they win an election.

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Great news! Will provide employment, a cash injection, and much needed roads for Wellington.

Got my vote…

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