Hospital parking plan needs a lot more work
INTERESTING to read the options our council and the New Zealand Transport Agency are going through to solve the traffic issues that, among other projects, our new hospital is going to create (ODT, 11.1.21).
Have these parties considered that none of these traffic issues are going to be resolved by the suggested measures?
The new hospital is going to be a regional hospital, which means that visitors/patients to the hospital will be travelling from out of town with no desire or capability to use public transport.
The same goes for the elderly and infirm who need to be dropped off to receive the services at the hospital. Also, they will be dropped off by elderly and infirm spouses or friends who can’t walk the distances required.
And what about staff? Is the
Wakari shuttle really an option?
Our council has the power to invoke conditions on the resource and building consent for buildings like the hospital or the proposed
ACC building by insisting that only these consents will be granted if adequate car parking is provided as part of the new build, instead of creating more problems and costs for this town by these proposed 12 measures.
Both projects have the space available to provide car parks as required.
These are not costs that should be shouldered by Dunedin.
Appie Borren
Musselburgh
Weed identification
FEATURED prominently on the front page of the paper (ODT, 29.12.20) is a photo by Stephen Jaquiery of publicly spirited Judy Russell holding a bunch of plants which one identified in the caption as big dandelions.
This is an often repeated misnomer which bothers me, because the dandelion is a small pot herb which grows close to the ground. Except for its hollow flower stem, every part of the plant has a culinary use and it is respected for its nutritional value.
Introduced to the West by the
Arabs centuries ago, it has been cultivated in herb nurseries and kitchen gardens in Europe and the British Isles ever since.
The plants shown might be members of the catsear family — it is difficult to tell from the photo. Perhaps a botanist from the university could enlighten us.
M. Sabonadiere
Mornington
Old word
I READ (ODT, 12.1.21) about pakaru, with a more imaginative spelling, appearing on a British quiz show. I remember in the ’50s and ’60s, this was a fairly frequently heard term for something that was broken or not functioning as it should.
As kids, it was considered a bit of a naughty word, like ‘‘bloody’’ was at the time. It was considered to be the Maori equivalent of a term frequently heard from sailors, with their colourful language, who visited New Zealand in the early days — ‘‘bugger you’’.
‘‘It’s buggered’’ was also the usual term the sailors used for anything that was broken or not working properly, hence ‘‘pakaru’d’’.
Yve Dara
Broad Bay