Pandemic has offered valuable lessons to us all
AS we move back to a semblance of normality, it is time to reflect on the lessons learned.
In the words of BadenPowell and Civil Defence, be prepared. Noone knows when the next disaster will strike; the Alpine Fault rupture, storms or disease.
Build networks. Get to know your neighbours and your community, and become a volunteer.
There is a need to upskill. Even the oldest of us must embrace new technology: internet banking and shopping, video chat or Zoom. It is important to develop skills in human relationships and communication, using empathy, humour and kindness.
Enhance these by filling your resilience toolbox. Take joy in simple things, and do not sweat the small stuff. Where necessary, swallow your pride and reach out for help.
But the most important lesson to learn is that all things pass. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. There is always hope and aroha. We are one, and together we are strong.
Carol Sheldon
Invercargill
Dunedin plans
AARON Hawkins says that those who challenge his CBD vision as ideological are intellectually lazy (ODT, 13.5.20).
Aaron himself is being intellectually lazy in providing no evidence for his claims that forcing vehicles out of the CBD will increase pedestrian traffic. The council’s own surveys show 75% of residents rely on car access to, and parking in, the city.
Indeed, the available evidence we can use to test Aaron’s ideology is firstly that of the cycleway network: huge cost, huge disruption and at the end of it, negligible difference in cycling numbers.
Then there is the evidence of the Octagon experiment which produced costly disrupted traffic flow but failed to produce promised ‘‘bustling’’ weekday atmosphere. Most of the time, the Octagon was as dead as disco.
Aaron’s carphobia will turn our CBD into a tumbleweed town. I am not opposed to consideration of traffic speed changes, given sound evidence, full consultation and respect for democracy. But this proposal, being rushed through under urgency of Covid19, is an ideological wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Aaron was living in his own bubble long before Covid19; we can only hope that wiser heads on council will now burst it and bring him into the real world.
Tony Collins
Dalmore