Big chance missed for Auckland

Once again Auckland Council are missing the opportunity to massively improve pedestrian amenity and traffic flow in downtown Auckland in their latest plan reported in the Herald. The $27 million provided by Precinct for purchase of QE2 Square, combined with money already allocated for fixing the downtown seawall, should be more than enough to underground Quay St from Commerce St to PWC Tower.

Pedestrians and local residents would get a fabulous traffic-free plaza from Customs St to the end of Queens Wharf, cross city traffic would move much more efficiently, access to Princes Wharf and ferry wharves would be retained for freight, tour buses etc, and the sea wall gets fixed.

Use the contours of Customs St to raise it over the dip beside Commercial Bay and you have a traffic-free walkway from Wyndham St to the end of Queens Wharf. Build Centrepoint above the Queen St/ Victoria St intersection as a free flowing pedestrian interchange with ramp, escalator, and elevator access and we are on the way to making Auckland the world’s most walkable and liveable city.

It doesn’t need more money, it just needs visionary leadership and competent implementation.

Stephen Greenfield, Auckland Transport Consultancy.

AT’s tree

Breaking News: Poisoned tree in Mt Albert, says Auckland Transport. No proof at all, just suspicion. How dare they say this based on nothing apart from the tree is dying? Auckland Transport have completed misread the wishes of Mt Albert residents in the redevelopment of the shopping centre.

It has spent $6.5 million, removed parking, caused major traffic congestion, a 14-second green light lets only five vehicles through if you are lucky. It has removed the left hand free turn for what? It has built a sitting area where no one sits, upset all the shop owners, ignored the broken footpath and unsightly trees outside the Winz Office. When will this be fixed? Come on Auckland Transport, do something positive.

Trevor Bindon, Mt Albert.

America alone

With his performance of the past week Donald Trump is well on his way to making America “great again”. But only great in the way American baseball is great. An American baseball team always wins the World Series, but then no other country enters, so it’s sort of an anticlimax.

Trump has distanced his country from Nato, from the WTO, from the United Nations’ human rights council, from traditional allies, from numerous trade agreements, from the Paris Accord on Climate Change, and in so doing has demonstrated America cannot really be trusted, if the whim of its President can be so pervasive.

The rest of the world will just have to get on, leaving America to play its own game in its own backyard. In the greater scheme of things that may be no bad thing.

Richard Alspach, Dargaville.

‘Hate’ speech

Hating is so very serious that we should be careful before accusing someone of it. It is one of those slurs that just “sticks”, regardless of whether it’s true. Unfortunately, it is now common to use the accusation of hatred to describe the view of someone whose view is simply different from the view of the accuser.

Many accusers know hatred is not a part of the equation, and coolly use the slur as a highly effective discussionending device. These people are out to control and are quite prepared to be dishonest and manipulative in the way they go about it.

A larger number of accusers merely believe their view is so obviously correct that only something as terrible as hatred can account for disagreement.

These people are extremely dogmatic but also simplistic in their understanding of the situation. They are also being manipulated by the lead group of accusers. Gavan O'Farrell, Lower Hutt.

Not the same

In response to your correspondent who equated the fight for suffrage, gay rights, civil rights, labour laws, and the abolishment of slavery to the alt right “hate speech” of Southern and Molyneux (and I believe it is indeed hate speech), they are in no way similar. The suffrage and rights movements sought to pull marginalised groups up to an equal level with the socially and politically dominant group, while the alt right movement seeks to further marginalise already challenged and marginalised groups, increasing inequality. They are not comparable movements and the alt right has no place in my home city. Eugene Beran, Takapuna.

He rules, we pay

We all know Phil Goff, the self-righteous, egotistical and self-proclaimed arbiter of whom shall be allowed freedom of speech in New Zealand, loves spending ratepayers’ money. In acknowledging his decision to not allow two Canadians to use council facilities, he is quoted as saying, “I don’t agree with much Donald Trump says . . . I am not about banning people . . . but I am about banning people who . . . ” However, when referring to the Free Speech Coalition’s intention to bring judicial proceedings against him, he switches from I, I, I, to the royal we. He is happy to fight this in court saying, “We will win.”

Who is this “we” when it comes to paying for the court case? Not him, but us. We the ratepayers will lose. Phil should put his money where his mouth is.

Dave Murray, Grey Lynn.

Idolatry

An erection of a fictitious maiden doesn’t represent truth and life. It’s an idea turned into an idol. Today, Bastion Point “shows off” its natural beauty within the landscaped gardens and views of the Creator’s seascape and horizon. I believe there is a flaw in the concept of this project and agree with previous writers, the Auckland Council is losing the plot.

Joy Eagleton, Glen Innes.

Mine a disgrace

Your correspondent Maxine Samson calls the decision to spend money on the Pike River re-entry “disgraceful”. I disagree. What was really disgraceful was the decision to allow this kind of very gassy mine in the conservation estate in the first place. Equally disgraceful, you could argue, was the lack of oversight of a failing mining company who failed to provide a second exit as mandated by the law. Finally, not heeding the many warnings about Pike River from people like the Japanese engineer who resigned in October of 2011 because he feared the mine would explode is disgraceful.

But what would trump all of this would be not bothering to find out exactly how long those men took to die, or exactly where the first explosion broke out. If we know that then we can make moves towards working out how to improve our woeful mine safety record. Pike River stands unrivalled as a monument to the perils of unfettered capitalism. That, and the blase attitude of a National Government, is the real disgrace.

P. J. Houlahan, Titirangi.

Getting away

I read in your editorial yesterday that 2000 suspected offenders escaped last year when police pursuits were abandoned. Those 2000 suspects no doubt boasted to their friends about their success in eluding capture and it probably explains the increasing rate of fleeing. And of course if it worked last time, why not do it again? I wonder how many are repeat offenders. If you want to stop them fleeing you need to catch them, sooner the better.

John Smith, Howick.

Climate ignorance

The usually reliable Fran O’Sullivan is wrong when she referred in the Weekend Herald to the embrace by top business and farming leaders of the Government’s Zero Carbon Bill as possibly “virtue signalling”. She should have said “ignorance signalling”. There is no conclusive or convincing scientific evidence that emissions of so-called “greenhouse” gases can or do cause global warming beyond natural limits long observed and recorded.

You compounded the error by printing alongside a piece mentioning “carbon budgets” a large photograph of two nuclear towers and two chimneys emitting what can only be steam (aka water vapour), as CO2 is colourless and odourless. Admittedly, water vapour is far and away the most prevalent gas contributing to the “greenhouse effect” by creating clouds which block the return radiation of solar and cosmic rays, thus keeping our planet comfortably warm.

Terry Dunleavy MBE, NZ Climate Science Coalition.