My cousin's even famous-er-er - therefore so am I

Kia ora whanua. I know it's been a little while since we last spoke, but I've been busy with university and Co-Convening the Young Greens you see, among other university shinanigans. However, I cannot honestly say I've been more busy than my cousin Phil.

No, that's not me on the unicycle, but yes he is a good looking guy. He's my Canadian equivilent, but is cooler than me. You see Phil Schleihauf is currently unicycling accross Canada for the charity Invisible Children which is dedicated to freeing the child soldiers who make up 90% of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, who are fighting in the longest running war in Africa.

Now, for those of you who don't know, Canada is a small country above the United States of America. Small in population that is, but large in size - the second largest country on Earth, after Russia. So it's a massive distance Phil will be riding, a lot longer than riding the length of our fair nation of New Zealand. So freakin kudos to him.

So follow his website if that kinda of thing floats your boat, but most importantly read about the Invisible Children. I had no idea about them, and I bet most of you (as informed as you are) wouldn't have heard of them either! And, of course, if you can, give them money. But at the very least learn about their story, and tell others that even though our corporate media ignores them, we will not.

Pimp my bike

Today the Auckland Greens on Campus, complete with two young candidates showed cycling, though currently dangerous, can be awesome. Courtesy of some spray paint, plus a collection of cool accessories, we pimped bikes. The above was one of our beautiful creations, though the owner did the spray painting himself. Ah, the beauty of cheap bikes and the willingness to decorate that goes with them.

In this photo is myself, fellow young Candidate for Te Atutu Xavier Goldie and committed Young Green Ruby Haazen with some of our beautiful cycle/bumper stickers at our stall table. A lot of such stall attending has been going on the last few weeks, but with exams coming up they will have to take a back step. But never fear, highly ranked young Candidate Gareth Hughes is coming up to Auckland on Saturday for some media events, some more pub crawling, and some more bicycle pimping. Should be a great weekend!

If you're interested in coming on the pub crawl on Saturday night just drop me an email, zachary.dorner@greens.org.nz.

Takin' one for the team

You may have already seen the (slightly inaccurate) article in todays Herald, but yes, I did dress up as a daredevil to highlight how unsafe cycling in Auckland is. Fellow Green Party Candidate (placed seventh on the list, so a very likely future MP) Kevin Hague joined me on my ride from Newmarket, along with four others.

It was before the launch of the Auckland Transport Strategy the Green Party has put together, putting much more cost effective and sensible options on the table than any other Party to date. It can be seen here. All our MPs and a number of candidates made a Green pilgrimage to Britomart due to the importance of getting Auckland moving to our economy. Each MP used a different non-car method, including walking, cycling, ferry, bus and train, and tenth place candidate David Clendon rode an electric scooter.

An integrated and affordable public transport system, based on three major rapid transport loops around the city, plus much better connections and more frequent services will be money much better spent than on a couple of new roads to nowhere. Plus safe walking and cycling facilities. So let's go Green!

Meanwhile, unfortunately you have to be a daredevil to cycle in Auckland.

PS take this weeks poll about public transport.

Real freedom = freedom from cars!

Yesterday was Car Free day, and it was celebrated by the Green Party in style.

Above you can see what they did in Wellington as they launched the Green Party Transport Policy for the election. After convincing 48 Greenies to drive their cars (no small task) to the waterfront they got a very graphic example of why bussing is so much better for the environment and eases traffic jams so much. One full bus is so much smaller! Especially when you add the space between cars that you get when driving. Of course I would generally put myself in the bicycle crew at the front because it is far more fun, especially in hilly places like Wellington and Auckland (downhill of course is what I'm talking about!).

The Green Party transport policy would see the funness of cycling made much safer and, as I said in my previous post, a funding role reversal. No longer would transport funding be so weighed in favour of dirty cars, but weighed in favour of public transport, cycling and walking. Let's free ourselves from cars and make our cities more liveable!

I'm also very keen on the $1 off-peak travel anywhere for two hours for public transport, and the half price fares for senior citizens, children and, most importantly, students. The poor beggars (of whom I will be one next year) currently have to pay through their teeth and fork out full adult prices! Mental considering how poor they already are.
As for myself, I walked to university in Auckland with three others. We wore visibility vests, had music pumping from a wheelie bin (courtesy of Greenpeace) and spread the word and love, handing out Green Transport Policy leaflets.

Next major car-related day is Free Car Day. Look for ACT and National in particular to be capatilising on that with their transport policies. as free cars will be the only thing that makes driving cars everywhere affordable in the near future.

Let us get across!

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.