roelandschks.bsky.social
Auckland suburbanite and former urbanite.
got an old school blog thing. https://wrongsideofmycar.blogspot.com/
197 posts
19 followers
30 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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But since The Avenue doesn’t show up as a separate lot on GeoMaps I guess it is complicated, because it is a private street.
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The thing local buses do there always struck me as weird. They have to do this little loop onto the busway to reach the local bus platforms. And why do we even have those? Can’t buses go around the block via The Avenue and stop there? That seems at least a bit less slow, and would take up less land.
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Yeah sometimes if it wants, Auckland Transport can be efficient.
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Bonus entry: panoramic view from Verran Corner, one of the highest points in the landscape in the area.
Except they put a fkn fuel station in the way.
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Collection of hills seen as you go down Eskdale Road. You start at almost 100m of elevation and you go down to 20m. In the distance to the left you can see (I think) the Waitakere ranges, and Greenhite to the right.
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View of the city, from Coronation Road.
This is how, back in 2020, I noticed the roof of the then under construction convention centre was on fire.
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Morning fog rolling in over the Upper Harbour, seen from Verbena Road.
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School zone in Takapuna. The standard for school zones used to be 40 km/h, with a lot of qualifications.
But at least they still have their 30 km/h on The Terrace.
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Picture of Lake Pupuke just because I can.
Auckland would genuinely be a better city to live in if cycling were more normalized.
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But car drivers can’t. Driving is too high stakes to look around for pictures, and cars are too big to easily pull over without being a major nuisance.
But, at least there was free flowing motorway traffic that day, so they enjoyed by far the quickest commute.
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We continue to Takapuna. As we cross the Glenfield Road ridge, the view on the harbour opens up.
I’m on a bicycle, so I’m free to take pictures. A perk shared with pedestrians (obviously) and bus passengers (which is why you often see pictures of the city taken from the Harbour Bridge)
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We do one thing well: ‘permeability’ for pedestrians and cyclists. We cross a passage guarded by bollards, and continue to Roseberry avenue.
Looking back, we now have signs there too. (as well as down at Castleton Street). And they are 30, rather than the old school 40. So we still got a small win.
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Down at the school, we encounter the old style school zone sign, with all the text describing times of the day. And then the school.
The temporary nature here is kinda dumb, with all the parked cars you’d be a fool to drive much faster than 30km/h anyway.
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Auckland is hilly, and one of the perks of hilly cities is vistas.
With a modicum of urban planning competence — parks and terminating vistas in the right place —Auckland could be *amazing*.
Here, a street acts like a mini viewshaft. Can you spot Highbury, and the Sky Tower?
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Of course, any competent city council would just have a zone 30 in this entire area of small streets.
But I digress, back to the topic at hand.
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Where are we?
We are on Verran Road, going down to the school at the end.
Located between 3 cul de sacs, it sees a lot of foot traffic. A formal 30km/h speed limit would be welcome but presumably someone mentioned ‘school’ during the consultation so AT felt the need to roll it back to 50.
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It also occupies the one spot where you can reasonably create a connection between regional public transport lines to the city, and across the harbour to the North Shore.
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So, households:
Income can also wildly go up or down.
Many owe many times their yearly income to finance/use a house. If govt would be run the same I guess 400% debt/GDP is acceptable?
Eh maybe not.
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Seriously though, if you think back to what used to be possible back in 2017, this is just sad.
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An alternative interpretation is that this is just how Auckland is meant to be, all this woke stuff is finally blowing over and if you don’t like it you can move overseas.
To anyone from Auckland Council does not think so: reminder that actions speak louder than words.
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“Shops closing over high rent” is a quite strange headline. What causes those high rents if the tenants can't afford them?
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Let's see how quickly regret sets in. As soon as you allow dogs somewhere you'll always get that idiot who lets their 40 kg dog jump in everyone's face. This is at best uncomfortable for adults, and terrifying for kids.
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But credit where credit’s due, it does look as bleak in real life as on that render.
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Wait it is killing the surrounding streets?
Gee, who could have seen that coming. It is almost as if that is a feature, not a bug, of such malls.
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Wait be careful what you wish for — you officially need a sparky to replace a broken light bulb in your ceiling (unless you have the old school screw fittings), you want to require an inspection too?
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It seems every last bit of multi family housing that already existed in 2011 will eventually disappear in those huge white plastic bags. If this happens again you won’t be able to sell any multi family housing probably for the rest of our life times.
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There are some obvious negative effects of this Villa Belt…
On the other hand if you walk to the city from there, I can’t help but think this would be an easier argument, if the area that is not single house zone didn’t look like this.
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Another downside is that it can make joining a motorway really annoying, especially if there are a lot of trucks on the road. For that reason, countries with a keep left rule tend to build much longer auxiliary lanes than what we have.
Short on ramps like this simply wouldn't work.
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The downside of a keep left rule is that it is vulnerable to slow drivers sticking in lane 2. People often respect the no passing on the left rule, and so faster traffic will back up behind that slow driver instead of just passing on both sides.
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Keep left rules are also always paired with not allowing undertakes, so drivers can always safely return to the lane on their left after passing someone. If you're allowed to pass on the left, systematically returning to the left lane after a pass is much more risky.
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With a keep left rule, most people will be driving on the left lane. If it is a bit busy, most people will be on the left and middle lane.
That is why, if a lane ends, it would never be the left one. That would force all that traffic to shift to the right in some random chaotic way.
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Keep left unless passing, or pick any lane?
This one is a bit more subtle, but from that gantry you can unambiguously tell it is "pick any lane".
People who say you have to keep left unless passing are wrong.
If the text in your road code book says to keep left unless passing, then it is wrong.
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Left hand traffic or right hand traffic?
That is an easy one.
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Can we have both everyone living in cities, and kids? I don’t know.
You’d think maybe kid friendly suburbs is a good cheat code. But alas, no. The Netherlands is famously good at those. Their fertility rate is dropping like a rock just the same.
data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP...
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At least you used to be able to build a little terrarium for your kids out in the suburbs. But that time is now also gone.
And anyway it is still not ideal. It is better, in the same way as keeping a fish in a little aquarium is better than keeping it in that little plastic bag from the shop.
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And that is how we condition everyone to ignore these alerts.
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Ah so close.
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So we're going to be waking up everyone every time there is thunderstorms at night? Be careful what you wish for.
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Yeah it is an interesting story. Did we have a serious estimate of cost for that?
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Wait wasn’t that yesterday night?
But yeah by the looks of it we’re about to get another serve.
Also, Metservice is getting absolutely hammered right now.
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I too seem to remember it was walking and cycling only.
And yeah question is: if you have 900 million to spend, what is the most effective: 900km of reasonably nice bike lanes, or ONE bridge?
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They did — on Dominion Road, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
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I think the assumption that unions want to avoid workers getting screwed over is a bit naive.
And even if that is their goal, a main sticking point is pensions, and there the reality is, you can’t negotiate with the shape of your population pyramid.
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I hate to admit it but trains over there will never be a serious mode of transportation without union busting.