The Wrong Side of my Car
The blog that wants to go obsolete
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.
The isthmus buses really are better
I often tell people that there is one little corner in Auckland with an existing functional public transport network: the western half of the isthmus. That’s it. Usually the response from public transport advocates lies somewhere between derision and bewilderment. I find this odd, because this is completely obvious if you just look at a bus map.
Living in parallel universes
We are living in two parallel universes.
Auckland transport is consulting on roadworks on a roundabout near me.
The good news first: three of the pedestrian crossings would be traffic light controlled. This should make it much easier to cross Glenfield Road if you’re catching the bus. No more watching people miss their bus while waiting for a gap in traffic.
Riding the bicycle from Birkenhead to Takapuna
A while ago I filmed my ride from Birkenhead to Takapuna. You can do this ride mostly on quiet streets. Mostly, but not entirely.
