Enough is Enough

How many of you have experienced the shock fear when a car speeds past you while on a quiet street or footpath, doesn't see you on the pedestrian crossing, or even runs a red while your waiting to cross?

It's safe to say that I think the majority of Aucklanders' have experienced this feeling. This my friend, is a serious planning issue that EVERYONE can relate to. As a planner, we aim to develop the roads so that the pedestrian and cyclist are catered for before any private cars. Unfortunately this aim has not been implemented effectively enough.

                   Google: Picture of traffic in New York

Although this picture is From New York, it still symbolizes the speed of traffic to pedestrians.
 
To sum it up... there are far too many cars on the road, and the drivers in these cars do not have the right attitude. We can't just keep building roads to accommodate the growth. We must invest in pubic transportation systems, we must integrate land use and transport networks more effectively so as to increase the safety "shield" between car and pedestrian, but more importantly.. we must improve the attitudes of these drivers.

"The significance of pedestrian injury in the road safety picture increases for urban areas. From 1993-1997, on urban roads (i.e. those with speed limits of 70 km/ph or less), pedestrians accounted for 28% of road fatalities, 12% of reported injury crashes and 18.6% of the social cost of injury crashes" (NZ Transport Agency, 2000).

Another important issue is the number of accidents that involve a private car and a cyclist. In 2007 there were 12 reported cyclists killed, 181 seriously injured and a further 699 with minor injuries (can you imagine the number of unreported injuries??) (Transport, 2007). I can only assume that this number has increased over the past 4 years.

So there you have the facts.. It is disturbing to think that this number is to increase unless we change our driving attitude and the whole transport system perspective. I personally have lost a friend who was crossing at a set of lights when a car ran a red. He is now a statistic along with hundreds of others. This must stop.

We must improve our traveling behaviors. They say that "safety in numbers" in terms of pedestrian and cycling is effective for improving safety measures but how do we get to that point where more people are confident enough to travel that way. We can look at Amsterdam as an example. Amsterdam is labeled the bike capital of the world - and for good reason.They have 40% of their traffic movement by bike. Follow this link to read about how they have created this image for themselves.
http://www.virgin-vacations.com/11-most-bike-friendly-cities.aspx

Imagine how these effects help traffic? Less on street parking, more room for the pedestrian, and these effects will continue to be positive. Check out this video about the traffic in Amsterdam

 If you would like to read more information on the pedestrian and cyclists statistics you can follow these links:
Cyclist: http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/documents/cyclist-crash-factsheet.pdf
Pedestrian: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/nz-pedestrian-profile/6.html

Interesting side note

Today in my governance and planning lecture, our lecturer Bruce Hucker was describing New Zealands recession problem. He was telling us about how the ones that have some responsibility in this financial struggle at the moment are actually in higher power today. He then went on to say that these guardians of power need guardianship... "who are the guardians of the guardians!"

When he said this, i thought of a rather amusing book series called "The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy". In one of the books the main characters are searching for the guardian of the universe. When they find him they see that he is a simple, down to earth man living in a shack who does not even know the responsibility that he holds.

I know this probably isn't making much sense, but I had a moment in class when I just day dreamed about this situation and laughed to myself thinking how different our country would be if we had a simple, down to earth person safeguarding our future. 

Climate Change

Although this isn't solely a New Zealand issue, I think this video is brilliant and really makes you think about what we should be doing now to ensure a healthy future in terms of climate change. Take a look. 4.5 million views do not lie!

I hope this is helpful...

Hey.

Welcome to my blog. :) This blog is meant to aid readers in discovering all about the planning world. If your anything like me, you have/had no idea of what it is (until you take planning at uni not knowing what to expect). Bascially, over my 3 years of studying it, I have come to really enjoy planning and all that it involves.

I can never make up my mind when it comes to choosing an issue because quite frankly, there are so many problems in the world that I feel they all need to be covered. But lets be realistic.. I can't talk about all of them so I'll just have to stick to the ones that are the most important to me and the reader.

So to sum up, this blog is here to aid those who don't have any idea about planning and urban design. It will cover many issues from transportation to the environment. I hope to convey it in a way that gives readers faith in Auckland and its future planning system. Because Auckland is a great place, even with all its problems.

I would just like to add that I have never blogged before (long time reader first time do-er as they say) so cut me a bit of slack if I'm constantly changing ideas and going off on different tangents :P

Any who.. best be off to investigate some issues eh? :P