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Blair Anderson, on the hustings 'canvassing for opinion'
affiliation: http://facebook.com/mildgreens
Showing posts with label Christchurch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christchurch. Show all posts
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Light Rail Feasability Study For Four Million?
LIGHT RAIL FOR WHOM?
Image via WikipediaIf I was a city councilor I would be very very concerned that such decisions are being called for before all submitters on this subject were fully explored. If I was media, I would be digging very very deep into this and asking why is this 'study' being rushed and at these levels of expenditure if it is not to ensure the decision parameters suit some options over others. If we are to internalise the benefits of any form of light rail/steel wheel decision we had better begin from first principles and evolve a needs based rather than an aspirational 'build it and they will come' design. Such a needs based "City Tram" proposal was submitted. Indeed, a rates neutral approach should be one of the design, build and expand criteria. The Christchurch City Council's hasty decision smacks of grift and electoral self interest.
Image via WikipediaThursday, March 3, 2011
Urban planning 'Evolutionary'
The word for Christchurch has to be 'evolutionary'. It will evolve, just as it evolved to become what we liked about it (and there were lots to not like too) and it will evolve into what our kids will make it. Athfieild and some of the others I have seen discuss this fail to understand that it is not his or his design committee's city. It is not Parker's or Council's. You can wish for what you want but if Bankers, Insurers and Investors are not lined up around 'risk' of both financial and physical (read: natural forces) nothing will come of these grandiose plans.
The place to start is not in the central CBD of the city at all, rather it is to rethink what it is that creates a city around its people.
Image via WikipediaI would begin by scrapping the tram and relegating it to beachside tourism or better still, turn it into a cable car for Lyttleton. It is a USELESS piece of non-essential (and expensive crap) that no longer is fit for purpose dominating a new cityscape...
Never before have we had the potential to redesign urban transport and create a public people (and stuff) mover across the fabric of the city like we have now. Put people on the move cheaply (and this will never be cheaper to implement than now) and commerce will follow the networks.
Image via WikipediaAs a mayoral aspirant I spoke of the merits of guided bus ways evolving into light rail. As events unfolded with Sept and Feb I have seen and critical observed how bus ways would have been durable, efficient movers of people as well as priority corridors for ambulance, fire and police 'around and bypassing' the traffic. That alone gives the idea merit.... get over this talk of rebuilding what is broken... when in all honesty, it wasn't working very well before. The Commercial developers ie: Ballantine et al vision for the city is a shopping experience..... in a world where people want to buy less and less.Get over it, the old school is deadwood. The focus for the city 'ratepayers' should be on what benefits the ratepayer... and to do that we have to rapidly increase the rate base across the city... high value commercial property with high social values. I would progressively ring the city with high-speed guiderail bus routes feeding into the four avenues from hub stations at the existing mall developments, university airport, hospitals, etc I would open the idea of hubbing light freight by autonomous 'carriers' and as this network enhances the city hotels and service centers etc could grow peripheral too the CBD.
Integrated use of land available (under emergency provisions and townplanning etc) creates a tourism and service centre on hte south side of Hagley integrating the heavy rail networks... (yep, the saleyards! take em back... they used to service 52 regional railway stations...100 years ago).
The only way to Green this city is to tackle the hard stuff now... get the networks right and the added value to the city will come....
Be vigilant and carefully scrutinize the burgeoning political and civic epithets...they are covers for 'I used to be relevant'.
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Blair Anderson
Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
http://blair4mayor.com/
http://efsdp.org/
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
http://blair4mayor.com/
http://efsdp.org/
ph nz (643) 389 4065 nz cell 027 265 7219
Sunday, October 3, 2010
1% goes to Anderson, not bad for $20
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker has stormed to a decisive lead in the mayoral race a week out from election day, a Press poll shows.
The survey of 400 voters, conducted between September 24 and 29, showed that of those who had voted or planned to vote, Parker had 36 per cent support to Jim Anderton's 20 per cent. Another 28 per cent had not decided, 16 per cent would not disclose and 1 per cent opted for Blair Anderson.
The survey of 400 voters, conducted between September 24 and 29, showed that of those who had voted or planned to vote, Parker had 36 per cent support to Jim Anderton's 20 per cent. Another 28 per cent had not decided, 16 per cent would not disclose and 1 per cent opted for Blair Anderson.
(of course Jim will be saying I have been out stealing his votes)
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Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
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Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
Monday, August 23, 2010
Third Wheel or Third Rail Issues?
Wanted: Better Stories about a Policemen and their Dogs.
If ANY of the candidates running for mayor were given 1/10th of the exposure the Jim/Bob show has been given they might have had half a chance. Passing muster at the Media 'approval' gateway seems to be the greatest hurdle to getting ANY traction on issues largely defined by Media. (SEE Press Online : Do we need a third wheel? )
This fellow has contested elections against BOTH Jim and Bob, whereas no one else has.
This fellow has been acknowledged as one of the most well known activists around the hustings for social ecology and out classes ANY of the remaining mayoral others in contributing to debate around best practice administration.
And, laughably even when reporting the "Grey Power" meeting the Press still couldn't get it right in suggesting I was somehow anti-drug, when I pointed out it was Hon. Jim Anderton who "legally regulated psychoactive recreational soft drug use, sale, storage, manufacture, advertising, premises, labelling and age of consent R18" and ASKING BEFORE THE AUDIENCE if cannabis had been put into those regulations would Gage the Police Dog be Alive or Dead today?.... or for that matter Napier Officer Len Snee (Bob Parker declared it a central gvmt issue at the Long Term District Plan hearings when I was submitting that such rules would make the street SAFER - it was the day Len Snee was buried. I said it would happen here and a year later it did!)
Now if Councils are to determine the process and approval for liquor licencing purportedly to protect the public health, and the rules above were passed by the Associate Minister of Health and administered under the Ministry of Health, one could reasonably expect that MIGHT BE a reasoned debate since it IMPLICATES both candidates.
The PRESS dumbed down and thus endangered the next Policeman and his Dog.
The PRESS dumbed down and thus endangered the next Policeman and his Dog.
The rules are there. They were made by the contesting candidate to manage BZP (A Christchurch problem and focus of previous Mayoral issues) and as CANNABIS is clearly and indisputably a soft drug, if these rules cannot be applied in Christchurch under the stewardship of their very author (and LABOUR party ) then where....?
Think about it, any other policy on the council agenda that "kills Policemen and their Dogs" ?
Why would media want to shut that debate down?
Or is such collateral damage OK to send messages to children, in a PEACE CITY.
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
Social Ecologist 'at large'
ph nz (643) 389 4065 nz cell 027 265 7219
Monday, July 12, 2010
Fatal crash in Christchurch
There has been a fatal crash following what appears to have been a police chase in Christchurch. [10/07/2010 ]
It happened early this morning at the intersection of Moorhouse Avenue and Manchester Street. Police say a Mitsubishi Lancer with six people in it was pulled over, but the driver drove off at speed as an officer approached it. It went through a set of red lights before crashing into a concrete power pole. One person was killed in the impact, two others are critical and one is in a serious condition in Christchurch Hospital.
Could someone please explain 'deviancy amplification' to the proponents and espousers of 'boyracer' legislation.
Minor deviancy, in this context, can be amplified by the mechanisms designed to control it. Deviance amplification was proposed by Leslie Wilkins and ...social.jrank.org/pages/1826/deviance-amplification.html
/Blair
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