@TransportBlog @JulieAnneGenter community outrage at new bike lane death trap in Island Bay

Source: Wellington’s Island Bay cycleway has left residents confused and angry | Stuff.co.nz.

We drove past this bicycle death trap in island Bay in Wellington the other weekend. The first thing I noticed is a lot of bicycle will be sideswiped as passengers in cars open their left door not expecting anybody to be there. The bike lane also narrows the road from buses. Residents now have a lot of trouble safely getting out of their houses without both are running over bicyclists and seeing oncoming cars. Further proof that bikes are a killer green technology.

Source: Wellington’s Island Bay cycleway has left residents confused and angry | Stuff.co.nz.

Part of the nonsense behind this death trap is that more people ride their bike if they can do so safely such as on this death trap according to the local mayor:

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown acknowledged the recent social media backlash – which she dubbed “bike-lash” – but was confident it would simmer down once the cycleway was complete.

She pointed to the council’s research, which showed 76 per cent of Wellingtonians would cycle more if cycling was safer.

“And I think a scientific survey is a clearer indication [of Wellingtonians’ views on the cycleway] than the number of social media likes or dislikes.”

Obviously our local mayor has not heard of the social acceptability bias that arises when answering questions about whether or whether not they are use fashionable forms of transport.

The number of people in Wellington taking a bicycle to work in Wellington is trivial. Three times as many walk to work as take a bike to work in Wellington.

Source: New Zealand Transport Agency.

The Twitter Left mantra as championed by the Greens and Transport Blog is that it would all be so much different we invested a little bit more in public transport is a myth.

The experience in Europe and North America is that if you make buses free, the cheapies that currently bike take the bus or train. In addition, the street people find it comfortable warm place to hang out when during the day which drives the regular customers away.

A 2002 report released by the National Center for Transportation Research indicated that the lack of fares attracted hordes of young people, who brought with them a culture of vandalism, graffiti, and bad behavior—which all necessitated costly maintenance. The lure of “free,” the report implied, attracted the “wrong” crowd—the “right” crowd, of course, being wealthier people with cars, who aren’t very sensitive to price changes.

Comparison of the Titanic and a modern cruise ship

Lost and found

Image

Creative destruction in car radios

https://twitter.com/historyepics/status/673025841648041984

Global deaths from indoor and outdoor pollution

@TransportBlog @JulieAnneGenter mode of commuting in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch

Jim Rose's avatarUtopia, you are standing in it!

Bugger all people commute by bus or train outside of Wellington. Even in Wellington taking the bus or the train has trouble staying well ahead of walking to work.

Source: Ministry of Transport. (2015).  25 years of New Zealand travel: New Zealand household travel 1989–2014. Wellington: Ministry of Transport.

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A hidden cost of terrorism

@stevenljoyce has his bridge too far on corporate welfare

Motorcyclist deaths and injuries by age group in New Zealand @TransportBlog

Just as young tearaways grew up about the dangers of riding a motor bike over the course of the 1990s in a rather rapid way, baby boomer having their middle-age crisis seem to have taken much of their place at the emergency room.

image

Source: Ministry of Transport. (2015).  25 years of New Zealand travel: New Zealand household travel 1989–2014. Wellington: Ministry of Transport, Figure 31.

NZ mode of commuting

Bugger all people commute by bus or train outside of Wellington. Even in Wellington taking the bus or the train has trouble staying well ahead of walking to work.

Source: Ministry of Transport. (2015).  25 years of New Zealand travel: New Zealand household travel 1989–2014. Wellington: Ministry of Transport.

@TransportBlog would #cyclists ever pass the precautionary principle?

Jim Rose's avatarUtopia, you are standing in it!

If bikes were not invented until today, would they ever be allowed on the road by road safety regulators. Here is the business case: allow pedestrians to move around at high speed on the road including at night with poor visibility as long as they travel on a metal contraption.

image

Source: Ministry of Transport, Cyclists 2014.

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With tech from 1960, you’d be more than twice as likely to die in a car wreck

https://twitter.com/MaxEhrenfreund/status/661946222970855424

Self-driving cars – a surprising quirk in the cost benefit analysis

Source: Self-Driving Cars and Organ Transplants – Concurring Opinions

Rocket man overtakes Boeing A380

HT: David Taverna

@JulieAnneGenter @jamespeshaw kill the case for electric cars @NZGreens

https://twitter.com/RadioLIVENZ/status/662064658203840512

In the course of calling for generous subsidies to electric cars, Greens co-leader James Shaw and transport spokesman Julie Anne Genter destroy the case for further public investment in electric cars and charging stations.

The Greens’ spokesmen refer to the biggest drawback of electric cars. Right now, it takes hours to recharge an electric vehicle. With generous investment by the long-suffering taxpayer, this recharging period will still be reduced to a still unacceptable 30 minutes.

Source: Business Tax Breaks for Clean Transport Options | Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Recharging times for electric cars are much worse than I previously thought. They highlight how little progress has been made in solving that problem.

Range anxiety is the biggest drawback of the electric car unless you’re willing to buy a very expensive Tesla. Even with a Tesla, because of the amount of time it takes to recharge even when a short is 30 minutes, the effective range is much less than the maximum range.

The motorist will have to build a larger buffer into their range of their batteries because of the time it takes to recharge. It takes a couple of minutes to fill my tank. Half an hour out of my day is still unsatisfactory, much less the current hopeless several hours.

Rather than fill up when you near empty, the green motorist will have to recharge when say a quarter empty or even half empty. The buffer must be larger than for a conventional car because the motorist does not necessarily always have time spare in the day to fill up.

With a conventional car, you can fill up at any time. With an electric car, you must plan in your week to ensure you have that half hours spare when you won’t need your car, can retrieve it from the recharging station with convenience and anticipate no urgent use of the car will arise.

Source: Business Tax Breaks for Clean Transport Options | Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.

In an quirk, the Greens want to increase electric car ownership by subsidising alternatives to car ownership for commuting purposes. People have fewer reasons to buy a car, much less an expensive sort of status symbol car, if they can commute for less because their employer gave them a free bus pass to take advantage of a fringe benefits tax concession.

Electric cars are a poor investment to begin with and what’s the point of shelling out all that cash if you don’t even drive it much? What more, electric buses are to be phased out in Wellington soon you will be commuting in a diesel bus to work courtesy of a free bus pass supported by the Greens.

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