Nelsust wants use of buses, e-bikes encouraged more
The same group that shamed solodrivers is asking the Nelson City Council to make it easier to use public transport.
Peter Olorenshaw spoke on behalf of the Nelson Transport Strategy Group, Nelsust, at a regional transport committee meeting on Monday.
He said ideally, the council would be working to not only make it easier to use transport other than cars, but to make it less convenient to use cars at all.
‘‘Should we be making it easier to get to work, schooling and recreation, easy in not just a car, or should we be doing more than that . . . actually make it easier on active and public transport modes?
‘‘Shouldn’t you be doing everything in your power to make car commuting less attractive? That’s the bullet I’m asking you to bite today.
‘‘Transport makes up 20 per cent of [New Zealand’s] emissions. It’s a big block,’’ Olorenshaw said.
‘‘It’s almost all road transport: domestic aviation, shipping, rail, it’s all pretty much flat-lined, but road transport has almost doubled [between 1990 and 2016].’’
He said a solution to this was not increasing road capacity, but encouraging people to live closer to the central city and to use public transport or electric vehicles, especially bikes.
‘‘We know that bald untargeted increasing of roading capacity just leads to an increase in car use and the congestion returns,’’ he said.
‘‘We need to be more targeted than that.’’
Councillor Gaile Noonan said Olorenshaw was right ‘‘in a lot of ways’’, but said there were difficulties with increasing the use of public transport, noting that buses were ‘‘expensive’’.
Nelson’s bus system is due for an upgrade, with an electronic ticketing system on track to go live in September this year. Three teenagers from the Nelson region are to compete against seven North Island acts after making it through to a penultimate Smokefree Rockquest round.
Nayland College students Will Roddick and Ruby Burr, and Waimea College’s Jewel Whimp, were named among nine acts from across the country to progress to the next round of the online solo/duo category of the music competition last week.
‘‘It hasn’t quite set in yet. So it doesn’t feel real, but I’m happy,’’ Whimp said, after getting through with High Horse, her indie, folkinspired composition.
It was the third year in a row the Year 13 student had entered, but the first time she had got this far. ‘‘I’m trying not to think about my chances too much, but just seeing it as fun.’’
The students have to submit a four-song video presentation within 21 days, and the winners of that go through to the final in Auckland in September.
Year 11 students Roddick and Burr were excited to have been chosen for their ‘‘chilled out’’ composition, Lolly soaked skies.
The pair now needed to write and film two more songs.
‘‘That’s what the holidays are for I guess,’’ Roddick said.
The duo will have their work cut out, with rehearsals also scheduled in the second week of the school holidays for the national choral competition, the Big Sing. They are among around 30 Nayland College students in the choir, Naycol Chorale, who have made it through to the South Island Cadenza finals in Timaru on August 16-17.
‘‘It’s quite different from Rockquest, so it was quite an honour to get selected for that,’’ Roddick said.