Posts by Stephen Judd
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More details please David - that's such a tease... I thought you were getting into the story-telling business yourself?
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Hymie? Dear Reece, that is not a nice word.
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why it is that here in enzud we always go for the cheapest shittiest nearsighted option?
See my post above.
Also, it's the flip-side of the "number 8 fencing wire" mentality. Being handy with number 8 fencing wire is very helpful in an environment where money and materials are not to hand. It is not so helpful in building long-lasting structures,
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Well, I blame Muldoon. Or rather, I blame the trauma of Think Big. The failures and the white elephant debt taught generations of us that big projects were always and necessarily a bad idea. Whatever self-confidence we gained from the big public works projects of earlier decades leaked away in the 70s and 80s. Many of the same people who are happy to be mortgaged up to the gills for their comparitively non-productive houses have a horror of government debt.
We need to look back at the ambitions of our ancestors and ask what we would do to live up to them. We need to ask what our descendants 100 years from now will admire.
In another thread Juha linked to a campaign to "get moving". I noticed that the vids on Auckland mentioned citizen lobbying as a major force behind Perth's train system. Perhaps we future-oriented people just need to organise. Political leadership needs to understand that there is a movement for them to be in front of :)
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One's instinctive comparisons of the costs and benefits of cars vs PT are likely to be astray. Most people don't amortise insurance, maintenance or even parking over each car trip, whereas PT never costs more than the actual ticket. On the other hand, the utility of having your own wheels is hard to price. On the third hand, if PT were ubiquitous, it wouldn't be markedly more inconvenient...
Personally, I work in the Auckland CBD, and my employer does not provide parking. Parking alone is far more expensive than taking the bus. I'm just fortunate to live close to Great South Road where the buses are frequent.
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Don't worry Che, I've stumbled drunkenly up Willis St on many a dark night...
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Wow. I'm so glad this was posted. It's tooth-grindingly frustrating though.
Automobile dependence is a major factor in my imminent move to Wellington, where things may be crap on on the public transport front, but not AS crap.
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Oh yeah. If the economy starts to slow/tank, the Labour government will announce that it's finally using the state's marvellous surplus and healthy balance sheet and embark on some major (perhaps visionary, perhaps white elephant) public works/infrastructure projects.
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the Kiwi obsession with zero or low cost short term incrementalism as a way of staving off making bowel emptying major decisions.
Yes, all the people who complained that waterfront stadium critics lacked vision -- give me some vision on public transport, please.