RaceCafe..#1...Tipsters Thread.... Share Your Fancies For Fun...Lets See Who The Best Tipsters Here Are.
eljay

Auckland's Roading Woes

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Well we are back to normal (sort of) people back from holidays and already noticable how congested Aucklands roads are.    All the old roadworks, and many new ones back in full swing to frustrate the motorist, along with the furied activity of other nuisances like Chorus etc and the plethora of construction firms all of who for some unknown reason have to close half the roadways often just as a free parking area for their machines.     The good old car transporters are back to their ubloading spots usually on the centre median strip.     And the big artic delivery units which take up the majority of the road in one direction, often completely blocking the (bloody) cycle lanes.    Just as well no one uses these utter waste of ratepayers money as there wuld be utter chaos.     Oh heavens, the schools are still on holiday, what will it be like when all those ankle biters return to the fray?    But seriously, Auckland is now a city out of control of their transport systems.     They are installing more & more speed humps which are getting so "high" that you often have to almost come to a complete halt to negotiate them - on a 50 kph carriageway, which causes a massive concertina affect (and many nose to tails)     And to further add to the chaos many of the traffic lights are possibly 50 years old and very unreliable.      

One question I would like answered by them who know more than me, is why the motorist has to pay for all the cycle ways & lanes that appear to be only sparsely if ever utilised and why the cyclist gets all this investment free.    

Watch out kiddies when you return to school - leave your bikes & scooters at home.   It's a viscious jungle out there and will only get worse as they try to squeeze more people into the same area..

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Cycling near the Port everyday ,I'm amazed at the number of cars coming in .

And the bike shops apparently short stocked too as sales boom.

Buses offer a good service [ generally] but are under-utilized.

Need to get cars off the road......get that Harbour tunnel underway with great cycle lanes and lessen the number of cars.

Of course out of control housing costs mean folk often live a long drive/ride from their jobs !

Those running the place have a lot to sort out !

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Are you greenie cyclists prepared to pay - registration or cycleway user tax - TM?

You obviously dont use public transport.     Too many bus/train changes needed to transverse Auckland and many hours just sitting on your butt either waiting for them or travelling in them.

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2 hours ago, eljay said:

Are you greenie cyclists prepared to pay - registration or cycleway user tax - TM?

You obviously dont use public transport.     Too many bus/train changes needed to transverse Auckland and many hours just sitting on your butt either waiting for them or travelling in them.

Gather your facts eljay......I do use the buses ,have a bus stop at my gate ,and the price is right.

But biking has extra benefits ...the most fun you can have with your clothes on !

Plus I pay many taxes/rates , and in the past have paid more than my fair share IMO....the odd business collected many taxes for the IRD !

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Can't wait for Wind Farms to channel the wireless Smart City technology, can you???
One has to question what is going on in these Tech . IT people running the show heads that we are paying vast sums of money for with NO accountability from them.

 

Bring back Horse and carriage, it's far safer, reliable and environmentally friendly.

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7 hours ago, meomy said:

Can't wait for Wind Farms to channel the wireless Smart City technology, can you???
One has to question what is going on in these Tech . IT people running the show heads that we are paying vast sums of money for with NO accountability from them.

 

Bring back Horse and carriage, it's far safer, reliable and environmentally friendly.

The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894

by Ben Johnson

By the late 1800s, large cities all around the world were “drowning in horse manure”. In order for these cities to function, they were dependent on thousands of horses for the transport of both people and goods.

In 1900, there were over 11,000 hansom cabs on the streets of London alone. There were also several thousand horse-drawn buses, each needing 12 horses per day, making a staggering total of over 50,000 horses transporting people around the city each day.

To add to this, there were yet more horse-drawn carts and drays delivering goods around what was then the largest city in the world.

This huge number of horses created major problems. The main concern was the large amount of manure left behind on the streets. On average a horse will produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day, so you can imagine the sheer scale of the problem. The manure on London’s streets also attracted huge numbers of flies which then spread typhoid fever and other diseases.

Hansom Cab
London Hansom Cab

Each horse also produced around 2 pints of urine per day and to make things worse, the average life expectancy for a working horse was only around 3 years. Horse carcasses therefore also had to be removed from the streets. The bodies were often left to putrefy so the corpses could be more easily sawn into pieces for removal.

The streets of London were beginning to poison its people.

But this wasn’t just a British crisis: New York had a population of 100,000 horses producing around 2.5m pounds of manure a day.

This problem came to a head when in 1894, The Times newspaper predicted… “In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.”

This became known as the ‘Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894’.

The terrible situation was debated in 1898 at the world’s first international urban planning conference in New York, but no solution could be found. It seemed urban civilisation was doomed.

However, necessity is the mother of invention, and the invention in this case was that of motor transport. Henry Ford came up with a process of building motor cars at affordable prices. Electric trams and motor buses appeared on the streets, replacing the horse-drawn buses.

By 1912, this seemingly insurmountable problem had been resolved; in cities all around the globe, horses had been replaced and now motorised vehicles were the main source of transport and carriage.

Even today, in the face of a problem with no apparent solution, people often quote ‘The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894’, urging people not to despair, something will turn up!

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