Ellerslie cycle lane endangers road users

A good example of Auckland Council’s blind obsession with cycle lanes is the one heading up Ladies Mile from Ellerslie Village.

Some years ago AT saw fit to install a wide cycle lane up the hill.

Drivers heading up the hill now have to straddle the crown of the roadway, which feels totally unnatural, and it places them

PPPs often fail

Good to see a number of initiatives on transport by the new Government. Not so good to see the Government and the mayor are pushing ahead with a discredited means of financing major projects such as Penlink, through Public Private Partnerships. These are inevitably more expensive and often fail. Governments and local authorities sometimes see these as useful because the debts do not appear on their balance sheets.

They will also be subject to the requirements of the TPPA and the General Agreement on Trade in Services, (GATS) allowing international corporations to force their way to gaining such contracts. More importantly they are seen to be a form of privatisation.

The fears and concerns are heightened because PPPs are normally focused on large publicly owned infrastructure, and it is the public who stand to lose control of vital assets, or eventually, the effective ownership of the assets.

This certainly does not at all seem a transformational move by the new Government, but rather a continuation of how the last Government would have acted. A.P. Holman, Northcote Pt.

Roads of the future

Your newspaper has published numerous photos of Auckland’s congested motorways. Is it possible to obtain a computer-generated photograph that shows how the uncomfortably close to the downhill traffic. Vehicles driving down the hill are now forced dangerously close to the parked cars, with the constant risk of a serious accident if a car door is opened inadvertently.

I am both a motorist and a regular cyclist.

I am all in favour of cycle lanes being installed where they are

roads would look in say five and 10 years’ time after billions of ratepayers’ money has been spent? A photo showing a line of vehicles waiting to charge their electric cars would also be of interest.

Mike Millert, Northcote.

Small dog havens

I read with interest the article by Auckland Councillor Cathy Casey. She mentions there are over 40 dedicated areas in local parks across Auckland where dogs can be exercised off the leash. That’s great, but it would also be wonderful to have areas dedicated specifically to small dogs where they can interact offleash in a fenced-off area such as 50sq m.

Such an area could be incorporated within some, if not all, of the 40 existing dog parks which are all very large and not completely fenced. It would be interesting to know if other small-dog owners share the same view.

Graham Pettett, Bucklands Beach.

Advice for Gayford

I absolutely agree with Mike Hosking’s advice to Clarke Gayford, but I am also sympathetic with Gayford’s response to Deborah Hill Cone. She and a number of your letter writers on occasion descend to the level of “women’s magazine” journalism at its worst.

Ardern and Gayford are representative of much that typifies contemporary New Zealand mores appropriate and where they don’t have dangerous consequences for all other road-users.

However I have lived in Ellerslie for 18 years and I drive on Ladies Mile several times a week.

In all that time I have never seen a cyclist on that part of Ladies Mile, either before or after the cycle lane was formed.

This one is an utter folly!

at their best. I have never voted for the Labour Party or their coalition partners, probably never will. But I wish the Government well. It is in the best interests of all of us that they succeed.

Jack Watson, Pukekohe.

Alleviating congestion

$28 billion is a lot of money. And what if it doesn’t solve the congestion? There is a very simple and less costly way to alleviate congestion. First, the Government must take control of all public transport, such as buses and trains. Especially now that the company that runs the buses in Auckland wants it off its hands.

Now comes the icing. If the Government seriously wants the majority out of cars and into public transport, take over and charge a nominal “gold coin” for every trip. You might not get much initially but you will have to get plenty more buses and trains to fill the waiting queues. Problem solved!

Instead of wasting more than a $100 million subsidy to a public company just to have and sometimes see empty buses plying the roads and adding to the unnecessary traffic, the Government should run the bus and train services individually under the best available person with the experience to perform.

The Government can convert the bus and train companies later to a public company when they become profitable but still retain the “golden share” to ensure that they are forever well run.

James Andrew, Bucklands Beach.