Trail and error
The PM didn't bowl over Trevor Mallard as the headline might suggest - construction of the much hyped national cycleway has started. I recall Bill English spitting tacks that the total cost was going to be $50m - but he just had to swallow it. The PM has it as something of a vanity project under his Tourism portfolio, so this will be one item that will not be facing cut-backs:
He says $3 million is to be spent on completing 41 kilometres of track, part of a 100 kilometre trail following the Waikato River.That's $73k per km for that stretch - that's some sort of a guide.
If a national cycle way is to go the entire length of the country we can also use State Highway One's distance as a guide: 2047km. 2047km x $73,000/km = $149.4m
If it is to be done right it will cost a lot more than $50m. A centrepiece - something that is an achievable target in five years time - would be a cycleway slung under the Auckland harbour bridge - but that would burn through the budget and the hostile car-focussed nematodes at the transport agency would fight it every step of the way. So, instead - if the image below is any accurate representation - the cycle way will consist of a narrow track with some roading metal thrown over it.
Yes, it is very 80s isn't it. Only in the 80s at least the PEP crew of work-for-the-dole locals would have concreted it.If that unsealed track in the middle of some desert tussockland is supposed to epitomise the cycle way, we have to conclude it is not for all bicycles - it is for mountain bikes. There's no way the pelvis and general arse area of anyone in a normal ten-speed road bike would cope with that hellish prospect. Would a tourist-type that one sees peddling along the country roads over-loaded with baggage want to attempt this goat track to Mordor? No - they'll stick to the sealed highways with all the dangers and inconvenience it poses.
Who is supposed to be using this "trail" then? Are tourists supposed to drive to it, do a bit of wanking about with the his and hers mountain bikes and then back in the diesel for the next photo pose session?
When the national cycle way idea was raised at the big hui at the start of this government's term I thought it would be a way for tourists on bicycles to be able to transverse the whole country without having to compete on the highway system with the other road users - or at least when it was part of a road's carriageway it would be in a separate lane.
However, if all we are going to be getting is a series of gravel tracks for the masochistic mountain biker niche - almost all of whom will have to use cars to get to and from these tracks - then what is the point? If this is all that it amounts to then it will be like proclaiming a national boating course that is actually just a dozen water skiing lanes at different locations around the country which sailing vessels and other classes cannot use.
posted by Tim Selwyn @ 12:43 pm
7 comments
7 Comments:
oh yippy...a shitty idea from a shitty government!
Perhaps to help get us out of a recession we could get everyone trained in the Mental Health profession so we could try and help Hone with his issues.....take a few thousand people I should imagine!
They are intended for mountain bike wanking. Currently the majority of hiking/bush tracks through out NZ forbid the use of mountain bikes because they rip up the track etc (which they try to maintain for old woman going hiking, not mountain bikes whizzing past the scenery).
I don't think anyone but the Greens would ever suggest a cycle alternative to the highway system since the people using it would be hippies and backpackers who spend stuff all anyway.
You don't want to make a bike track like that Segway capable. You'll have the rescue helicopter out there every second day rescuing some fat bastard who blew a tire.
It's all a bit too Blazing Saddles for me.
"oh yippy...a shitty idea from a shitty government!"
Still crying over the loss of your taxpayer funded flower arrangement classes?
Still crying over the loss of your taxpayer funded flower arrangement classes?
I love this line of attack by the anonymous on-line right wing mafia. The destruction of 80% of all adult education to give $35 million to the private education industry is one thing, but the manner Tolley has gone, as does this brave anonymous poster, to denigrate adult education to morrocan cooking and flower arrangements is just vomit inducing. How you could parrot such lazy bullshit criticism anon and I suspect actually believe them shows how far adult education could've helped you.
It's a Green trap. A cunning plan...
The green /blue or blue- green or whatever the f*** they are called nowadays party might think john key is cool once the first 40 kms are built, he hopes.
Just about the time john key will actually have to present a policy decision to fill the black hole formerly known as the foreshore and seabed act. We the people don't like act since even the dimmest of average voters can smell an asshole.. so, who you gonna call, john?
matthew hooten thinks it is a swell idea for Maori to contract with overseas hoteliers to fill the foreshore with multinational hotel complexes on "their" land.
So the cycleways might become the only place kiwi holidaymakers will be able to take the kids for the free holiday formerly spent at a place once known as "The Beach".
Yeah I too thought it was a bike track traversing the entire country - and thought what a neat idea.
Seems like it is not. Which is a shame, as I was thinking of getting into bit of bike riding - but not over some dirt track.
I'm certainly not into jolting my testicles and getting a sore ass. I have heard bike riding of this nature can reduce sperm counts and lead to impotence.
Post a Comment
<< Home