Trumpets blowing and the car parks going
The letter from Alex Armstrong (ODT 3.1.24) pretty much says it all.
At various times I am a motorist, a cyclist or a pedestrian and agree that cyclists need safe areas to ride, but not to the extent that our struggling retailers lose essential customers. There are so few cyclists using the city lanes that already exist that I find it difficult to understand how the cost of installing them in the first place can be justified.
One only has to note how many businesses have closed in the city or ask those in the Meridian or Golden Centres to confirm how much trade has been lost due to lack of parking. It is all very well to use the bus to get into the city, but when you have made your purchases and are laden with shopping bags, getting home again is no mean feat, especially if you are not particularly strong or able bodied. The whole idea of car parks was to make it easy to shop in town.
My understanding of the responsibilities of a council is that its members were elected to be a voice for the people in its region. However, this assumption appears to be incorrect. It is obviously more a platform for individuals to blow their own trumpets and promote their own particular projects, with commonsense and the citizens’ opinions being tossed unceremoniously in their wake.
Jackie Dalziel
Mosgiel
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Highways and safety
I refer to the editorial (ODT 3.1.23), in which the writer seems be be aghast that the government is redirecting money from cycleways to roads, and infers that spending money on bike lanes will save lives but roads will put lives at risk. I beg to disagree.
The writer makes a deal of New Zealand's road toll rate versus other countries, in particular Australia. Australians are not on average better drivers than New Zealanders. The major difference is the quality of major roads. Better roads make driving safer. (I live in Australia half the year; I have some experience in this).
SH1 in New Zealand has some small pieces of good, four lane dual carriageway road. However, most of this road is two lane with no separation between traffic directions. Accidents and fatalities frequently occur through slight lapses of attention.
Instead of really addressing the need to fix at least the main roads here, the previous government spent too much of their money on little used bike paths. The Caversham SH1 improvements cost $25 million-ish. So far about $100m has been spent on bike paths and enthusiasts want to spend at least that much again.
If that new $100m were spent on upgrading the road south from Mosgiel would we still be reading of accidents around Waihola seemingly every few weeks? A proper national highway system cannot be built in one year, probably not in one decade. But government needs to start. And redirecting money from hobbyists and their cycles is at least a start.
K McCabe
Sunbury
Myopic view
By defending Transport Minister Simeon Brown in the defunding of cycle and walkways, Graeme Thompson (ODT 5.1.24) is as myopic as his minister. A well conducted US study has revealed that when previously unfit adults take up exercise, their mortality rate from heart attacks halves, saving lives and millions of dollars. Cycle and walkways, notably in Dunedin, engender exercise. Heart attacks kill 16 times as many Kiwis as road crashes. Mr Brown's policy should be binned.
Ian Breeze
Broad bay
Respect due for the Pope and the King
Time and time again your editorial snidely remarks on royalty and religion, but this time I have to comment (ODT 27.12.23).
Pope Francis knows more than most people what average people have to deal with. In fact, he probably knows more than the poorest person born in New Zealand knows, given that his family fled from Italy to Venezuela to escape facism, with his brother dying. Then his early religious life as a Jesuit priest living with the poorest of the poor, being a schoolteacher, foster parent to many and protector of the abused and ridiculed.
He didn’t choose to be Pope, he didn’t want to be Pope but was in the end persuaded. Maybe he thought he could help reduce the hate and discrimination, educate the uneducated among his religion?
King Charles also didn’t choose his life. Like all royal heirs, he has had to work hard every single day from a very young age to speak several languages, be proficient in music and or art, learn screeds of history — both family and political, not just of your own country but of the European family and the Commonwealth and understand it.
He even has to work under public scrutiny every single day of his life — even Christmas Day — and of course be extremely well mannered in public and show the greatest respect for all.
He’s been in more situations of poverty and distress than any other world leader and his grandson even slept a night on the streets with homeless people. Have you done that? Their vast estates donate more money to charities in the UK than all the benefits given by the government. Why not do a piece on that?
The ODT made snide comments about him being a tree hugger many years ago — how views have changed. Maybe with a bit of research this paper could run some articles on what royalty really gives back to the people?
Lynne Newell
Dunedin
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Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
