Perhaps we need to talk to new roading ‘stakeholders’
IT may be no surprise that we are losing many of our downtown car parks when we reflect who is involved in deciding to rearrange our streets in case we suddenly get an influx of bikes.
It starts when NZTA imagines they are making safety improvements, and helping to keep people active by encouraging cycling. And it results in arguably more unsafe streets and only encouraging activity by requiring everyone to walk further to and from their cars.
Actually, not everyone.
The institutions collected together to discuss such road changes are led by chief executives and boards who themselves are provided with free parking. It appears those who are highlypaid receive free parks, while others who are paid less are also the ones who trudge for miles to their cars.
It is possible those in charge of these institutions have forgotten that parking is important. If that is the case, how about the chief executive and council members of the University of Otago, the Dunedin City Council, the Otago Regional Council and the hospital commissioners all finding their own parks of a morning? It might only take one day of paying $25 in the Farmers car park to change their views.
When these institutions get together under the description ‘‘stakeholders’’, things are not helped by them imagining they are discussing cycleways, not parking. Because they think that cycleways are the issue de jour, the groups include institutions and cyclists, with a possible nod to finding an Automobile Association member and on a
good day, a truck driver.
If we accepted that these road changes are about parking as much as cycleways, we would have a different group at the meetings to decide about what to do.
We would have some of the lowestpaid hospital, university and museum staff. We would have someone who is entitled to use mobility parking. We would have retail staff who can’t find an affordable park, and retail owners who are aware if customers can’t find parks, the balance between shopping locally and shopping online could well tip against them.
And we would have a serious presence from the heavy truckers if the proposal is to make changes to any of the usual routes taken by heavy trucks through Dunedin.
The precursor to these discussions is that NZTA has money available to make our roads safer. Alterations which involve redirections of cyclists weaving around heavy trucks on the state highway are therefore thought of as safety improvements.
It is hard to imagine how anyone who drives past signs
telling us all to take extreme care because cyclists have been told to cross in front of us can think these roads are safer. Neither does it seem likely anyone can believe delivering a cyclist to the lefthand front wheel of an articulated logging truck at an intersection is anything but seriously and unnecessarily dangerous. And it must be obvious that the cycleways with parking on the street side provide little room to manoeuvre for trucks trying to avoid those getting out of the passenger side of cars without looking.
At least there are not a lot of cyclists at risk, since most of the cycles we see in the cycleways are bikes drawn in the road every few metres.
As for the concrete parking ledger stones taking up road space, the only good thing about these would seem to be that they may be able to be removed easily when this strange road rearrangement experiment is over.
If only NZTA had concentrated on finishing the walkway/ cycleway to Port Chalmers and the DCC had done the same on the other side of the harbour, we could all have been encouraged to cycle and walk more in safety and with pleasure.
And we could have had committees with the right people discussing how best to have heavy trucks, cars who need to park and those on foot and on bikes all having an enhanced and safer environment.
It’s not too late. Blame the last government. Tell people you hadn’t realised Dunedin is not flat but is filled with people driving places. Take the ledger stones away and teach cyclists to use the roads as they do in the rest of Dunedin.
You know you want to. — hcalvert@xtra.co.nz