Why merge cycle/foot paths?

As a cyclist I would like to understand the Christchurch City Council’s reasons for combining the cycle path with the footpath in the area at the top of Antigua St and over the Boatshed bridge.

This area is incredibly busy with cyclists, pedestrians and hospital staff/visitors. Cycling to work in the morning I am concerned about the safety of all footpath users in this area. Many pedestrians do not look for cyclists when crossing the footpath, or they do not walk in their designated lane.

Cycling is reaching critical mass in Christchurch. It seems short-sighted on the council’s part not to have built separated cycle lanes in this area.

Annie Cao, Spreydon

Squeezing

Cheers to Lianne [Dalziel] and the council for squeezing Regenerate. There is more squeezing to be done.

Sadly the cash moves to another soak-pit, ChristchurchNZ. It was sold and headed as a council marketing vehicle – now it’s going to be an economic adviser – more staff, more costs.

Let’s regenerate through our elected council and its own CEO-controlled staff, and hold them to account.

Let’s regenerate for the here and now, avoiding excessive lobby group-driven mistakes. Robert Black, Merivale

Gridlock

Michael Goodson (Feb 13) complains about slow convoys and the gridlock in Hornby on his recent road trip to Central Otago.

I think I am safe in assuming that Mr Goodson was travelling in some sort of motorised vehicle because, if he’d been on a bike, for example, it is highly unlikely he’d have needed to submit a letter about this apparent problem.

Hornby is a very busy route for commercial trucks. If I were a driver, that’s something I’d take on board before planning my trip.

It’s always someone else who must make the sacrifice and give up their car, never ourselves. When this sort of selfish complacency is combined with inaction on a local and governmental level, is it any wonder it seems like we’re on a road to nowhere? Raymond Shepherd, Strowan

Insect decline

Amid concerns regarding the National Party leadership, Parliament’s return for 2019 and the possibility of a capital gains tax, intensive dairy conversion spells farewell to the Eyrewell ground beetle.

Here in Canterbury, profitability has led the owners of Eyrewell forest, Ngai Tahu Farming, to convert land to dairy pasture.

So, why care? A February 10 Guardian article, ‘‘Plummeting insect numbers threaten collapse of nature’’, tells why.

Insects are essential for the proper functioning of all ecosystems; as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients. At current rates of decline insects could vanish within a century.

Intensive dairying presents a multifaceted evil. The evil of climate-disrupting emissions from cows, the evil of pollution of waterways and now the evil of exacerbating insect extinction.

It’s simple; STOP destructive practices. Economic imperatives merit extinction before environmental necessities.

Sharyn Barclay, Upper Riccarton

Muddling through

The riposte to my comments (Feb 12) on how the Brits had a capacity to ‘‘muddle through’’ should not go unchallenged.

My experience of having talked with and listened to some old soldiers from both world wars is one of hearing how they muddled through in adversity when ‘‘brilliant schemes’’ drawn up by military planners and politicians were, for whatever reason, thwarted. As a result men had to muddle through in order to survive.

I have heard such men talk very proudly indeed of having done so and why should they not?

It doesn’t make sense to gainsay their experiences by implying that muddling through, as they did in their own words, somehow demeans their status or that of those who died around them, let alone that of the planners.

I presume that the notion is still alive because I see it much in evidence in the current context surrounding Brexit, just as it was in both great wars. John D Mahony, Mt Pleasant