The Wrong Side of my Car
The blog that wants to go obsolete
How much do we get out of that 8th lane?
The previous post was about whether or not it is the right time to liberate the lane. One thing that was mentioned was that the average lane on the harbour bridge is used by about 10,000 people.
However not all lanes are created equal. How much capacity do we lose when switching to 7 lanes?
The case for and against Skypath
A prominent missing link for bicycling and walking in Auckland is the bridge over the Waitematā Harbour. About 10 years ago it was expected that Skypath would fill this gap — long story, but now, after another couple of somewhat dumb iterations, it looks like we will be without a cycle crossing for another while.
Some go as far as saying it is the most critical missing link in Auckland. But I think this is an exaggeration, seeing how the rest of the bicycle network on the North Shore basically doesn’t exit.
There are tiers below Painted Bike Lanes
Paint-only bike lanes often cop a lot of flak. Sometimes for good reason, for instance the setup on Glenfield Road or Green Lane is ridiculous.
But still. When cycling in Auckland, most of the time, it is much worse than painted lanes. Are we throwing out the baby with the bathwater here?
So today we explore the abyss that lies below this level of infrastructure.
Car brain
Have you ever heard anyone use the term Car Brain?
Maybe someone is pointing out that you obviously can’t get groceries without a car *1. Or, yeah public transport is all good if you just want to go straight home from work but this will obviously never work if you have to go to other places underway. These assertions often attract scorn, and ‘car brain’ is a term to imply that people saying these things are kind of stupid. It is perhaps a bit of a Liberal thing, and liberals aren’t exactly known to be good at making friends.
In basic terms, it refers to people who no longer know how to survive without driving a car. Or even, whether or not this is possible at all. But can you really blame them? Look around in your city. How do the streets work? Where is everything?
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.
A walk to the park
This post appeared as a guest post on Greater Auckland.
This block between Hobson Street, Cook Street, Nelson Street and Wellesley Street is home to about 3,000 people on 3 hectares *1. For those who are wondering, and who like the post about Auckland at varying densities, this is what 100,000 people per km² looks like:
And this is how you walk from that block to the nearest park, Victoria Park:
It is a short 400 to 500 metres walk to either Myers Park or Victoria Park, depending on where you are. But the term ‘short’ is relative. Does it work if you’re with children? Here’s a Key Performance Indicator for this sort of walk:
It should be safe for a 5 year old child to walk from his apartment to a park, with his parent walking a few metres behind him. Without holding hands.
It’s no mystery whether the streets currently meet this KPI or not.