The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

Decarbonising St Heliers

Well, I called it:

So what is the catch with cycling for JAFA like me?

• Horrible cultural taboo, among people but especially within transport planning.
• Not getting cyclists killed is not a priority. Did I mention taboos? Here’s another one: decreasing the amount of on-street parking.

The ink is barely dry yet, and here we go: St Heliers village safety improvements — note the first two ‘improvements’ over the previous design:

The proposed improvements include:

• No loss of car parking.
• A new car parking area on Goldie Street.

The proposal has all the parking you ever wanted, a 4 m shared path on the sea side, and, um… nothing on the side of the town, which kind of sucks if you’re coming to the shops on a bicycle. 4 m is also kind of tight, considering this is right next to a line of parked cars.

This is what you do if you don’t like some outcome: create a working group which just so happens to only contain people who agree with your preferred option, and go from there.

After the creation of the working group I tried to get a Youth of Ōrākei representative (Ōrākei Youth Board) onto the group. This was strongly opposed from the St Heliers Residents/Business Associations. This is what happens when you close off discussions to fit your agenda. – Isaac Mercer

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