The Wrong Side of my Car
The blog that wants to go obsolete
The myth of permanently supervising children
A point that comes up again and again in discussions about streets is whether or not children should ever be outside of their homes by themselves.
(If you’re Dutch, this entire discussion is going to seem insane, and it frankly is, but it is worth appreciating how unusual the situation in the Netherlands is)
And for sure, it seems the obvious answer to many people is that of course not, it would be totally irresponsible to let children out unsupervised. Also, it is The Law, you have to supervise them until they’re 14 years old.
Wait, fourteen. Fourteen? Really?
Coming of age in our Car society
Societies have a wide variety of rituals to celebrate someone’s coming to age.
Some Christian denominations have a Confirmation, or Plechtige Communie as it is called were I grew up, and until that happens you are not a full member of the Church, but still in some half baked innocent state.
Many cultures don’t just tell you that you’ve come of age, but they make you prove it. Endure the stings of your local breed of nasty ants without crying out in pain. Or survive a day in the wilderness without your parents. We’ve all heard of those stories. Closer to home, student clubs may ‘baptise’ people if they wish to become members.
With this coming of age comes some recognition and sometimes privileges to celebrate that you’re now a fully initiated member of something.
And here, in the Western nations, and in particular in English speaking nations, we have a coming-of-age ritual that befits our industrial technological prowess:
It is passing your driving test.
Children in the city
Previously we talked about walking to the park, and in these discussions a lot of people do not understand the point, because they take for granted the current lifestyle we foist onto children.
We need to talk. About how we ask children to live their lives in our city.
Safe School Street in Birkdale
Auckland Transport is running a trial arrangement at Birkdale Primary School. The project page even has some Vision Zero buzz words on it.
Auckland Transport is taking a Vision Zero approach to road safety. This means we are striving to have zero deaths or serious injuries on our transport system by 2050. To achieve this, we are working to create a more forgiving road network that recognises that we are human and make mistakes. But those mistakes should not mean someone dies or is seriously injured on our roads.
We have used material and colours that enhance the vibrancy of the area. This serves both as an effective and visual queue (sic) to motorists, that they are entering an area with lots of people moving around, and to add to the character of Birkdale Primary School and its surrounding neighbourhoods.
On the ground (literally) we see flower patterns and bollards, mainly to take away excessive road width, especially at the intersection. Making crossing the intersection less dangerous due to cars turning at high speed. These are welcome changes to anyone who has a kid walking to that school. Even with the build-outs Birkdale Road still has a very generous 7.5 m width.
…and they’re open to cars again
Well, that didn’t take long.
This was never going to be an easy or uncontroversial project, but this demise still came quicker than I expected. And I don’t exactly consider myself more optimistic than average.
Where did we go wrong?
They’ve actually closed some streets for cars
A few weeks ago, images like this started popping up in my Twitter feed.
It is called the Arthur Grey Low Traffic Area.
Imagining something else for Birkenhead
After the Harbour Bridge opened in 1959 Onewa Road became the main arterial to the city. To cope with the traffic from Beach Haven and Birkdale (presumably), part of Mokoia Road was bypassed. This presents us now with an opportunity.
My kid almost died on Ponsonby Road
I visited Ponsonby last weekend, with the small kids. Big mistake. I should have seen it coming.
So, lucky as I was, I managed to park my car about 50 metres from where I was going to have lunch. That 50 m was enough to almost get one of my kids killed.
A peek outside my bubble: property speculator whining group
Something washed up on my Facebook a while ago.
Sponsored. Hmmm. Someone is paying to spread this stuff. Maybe I have been targeted due to my searches about growing veggies in my garden, something which you pretty much can’t do unless you own your home. *1
The Big Reason™ why Auckland is Unfit for Bicycling
A lot of people argue that there’s a Big Reason™ why people will never ride a bicycle in Auckland.
And they are right. They just guess the reason wrong.
It’s too cold some say. It has zero days of frost, and zero days of heavy snow per year. How terrible.
Or it rains too much. If only we had a nice warm and dry climate. Like Amsterdam or Copenhagen. You know, if you look at the winters over there, we’re doing pretty good on the ‘warm’ part.
Or it is too hilly. Maybe. I commuted to work on my bike from a few places, and the usual serve of uphill stretches is 15 to 20 climbing metres per km. That’s a lot. But I still make it to work. Just a bit more slowly.
Wrong, wrong wrong. The Unique Reason™ is inside the people living here.
Oh there’s an advertisement for— wait, what?
Spotted this one a while ago at the City mission in Auckland. You don’t see these in Belgium.
And meanwhile the LED ticker goes like “PLEASE DONATE”, and “HELP A FAMILY”. Sure, sure.
Figuring out again how a bicycle works
Here in Auckland, riding a bicycle is a distant memory at best. Something people did once upon a time, before the industrial revolution. Or back when the animals were still speaking. Or something else long time ago.
So it’s not really surprising to see warts like this in the newspaper:
A bicycle registration system will be introduced so that future cycle lanes will be built when the fund accumulated from cyclist registrations allows for it.
That’s one David Rankin running for council. So I think he’s serious (correct me if I’m wrong). What about this idea:
Restore the access to all the volcanic peaks as it existed in 2011
Yeah sure. Anyone who has ever driven his car up one of those peaks during a sunny summer weekend knows how stupid that idea is.
But I digress. You know there’s trouble when people start talking about bicycle registration, and seriously think it’s a good idea. I guess after being on a car-only diet for too long everything starts to look like cars, and these little things about driving a car—like you need a license, a rego, etc.—just seem normal things for everyone underway on our streets.
But no, they all have a reason, specific to the fact you’re driving a car, and not a Segway or a step or a bicycle. Applying what you know about cars to other transport leads to all kinds of weird ideas.
When you realize that a bicycle is in fact not a miniature car, it’s easy to debunk these ideas.
Just a minimal bit of courtesy
Some things can be codified in traffic law, like yielding to pedestrians at a zebra crossing. But often, being nice to each other is all we need to resolve a lot of situations.
Sometimes I fantasize of punishing inconsiderate people. But that shouldn’t be needed. Please show just a minimal bit of courtesy from time to time.
Bicycling in Auckland: the big no-no
I’m an European guy, so when I came here I had some expectation of being able to get around in the immediate area on my bicycle.
I was wrong.
Auckland is not just built for cars. Apart from a small area in the CBD it’s built exclusively for cars. And it’s utterly hostile to pedestrians and even more so to bicyclists.