This afternoon I attended a gathering of about 400 or 500 cyclists (from my rough estimate) beneath the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
The gathering was in favour of a cycleway and walkway being added to the bridge when maintainence is carried out on the bridge clip ons in the next year or two. It is an excellent opportunity to do this, but is at this stage by no means a closed deal. At the moment you can't walk or cycle over the bridge - which is absolutely crazy. Nor can you scooter. What do people do who don't have a car, or want a more sustainable option (besides bussing)? Estimated cost of the project is between $20 and $40 million, which "chicken feed" compared to the billions that go into other roading projects, as Keith Locke put it.
Above is me and Xavier Goldie, who is another young Green Party Candidate in the Auckland area.
At the event Keith Locke announced parts of the Green Party transport policy for the election. We want to change the ratio of funding from 5 times as much being spent on roading compared with public transport, walking and cycling to a reverse situation where we spend twice as much on public transport compared with roading. That will ensure that we never have to fight another battle to get a very sensible cycleway built. We also will become more sustainable by using the roads we have much more wisely, rather than spending billions on new ones - which never helps ease congestion, it just creates more.
