[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwiXrDL3bPs?rel=0]
Save the Basin and the Mt Victoria Residents Association have been hard at work raising funds to oppose NZTA’s attempt to get the High Court to overturn the Basin Board of Inquiry decision. The Architectural Centre will also be represented at the High Court, and as part of their fundraising efforts, they have produced the great video above. Please check it out and share it!
The Save the Basin Campaign says the news that there has been a dramatic drop in the number of Wellington teens getting their drivers’ licences backs up its stance that there is no need for the Government and the New Zealand Transport Agency to press ahead with plans for a Basin Reserve flyover.
“According to the report in today’s Sunday Star-Times, NZTA’s own figures show that the number of Wellington teens between 16 and 19 getting their drivers’ licences has fallen by over 50%, and up to 75%, between 2008 and 2013. This dramatic decline reflects a worldwide trend. It shows that teenagers have rejected the car culture and assumptions of endless traffic growth that drive NZTA’s and the Government’s planning for such projects as a Basin Reserve flyover.”
“These figures back up what Save the Basin has been saying all along,” Tim Jones said. “Not only would a flyover be ugly, disruptive, and put the future of the Basin Reserve at risk – it simply isn’t necessary. Young Wellingtonians are turning off driving because it costs too much, it’s unsafe, they don’t need to drive across town to communicate with their friends, and public transport provides good alternatives. So why build a massive flyover that won’t be needed?”
“Rather than wasting money on outmoded motorways and flyovers, we need to be investing in high-speed broadband on the one hand, and public transport on the other. But the Government is full of baby-boomers who grew up with cars on the brain, and it seems that NZTA’s transport planners share the same mentality.”
“It’s time for a change in transport thinking,” Tim Jones concluded. “It’s time to let go of the notion that New Zealanders are wedded to their cars, because that’s no longer what the evidence says. It’s time to abandon the 1960s transport thinking that says the answer is always a flyover or a motorway. It’s time to plan for the future, not the past.”
UPDATE: See TV One’s coverage of the issue: http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/fewer-teens-apply-driver-licence-video-5855551
ENDS
Tim Jones
Save the Basin Campaign spokesperson
027 359 0293
“The Human Scale” is a Danish documentary which has been a huge success at film festivals, including a sold-out festival screening in Wellington. It includes a section on the Christchurch rebuild.
Here’s the synopsis from the film’s website at http://thehumanscale.dk/the-film/:
50 % of the world’s population lives in urban areas. By 2050 this will increase to 80%. Life in a mega city is both enchanting and problematic. Today we face peak oil, climate change, loneliness and severe health issues due to our way of life. But why? The Danish architect and professor Jan Gehl has studied human behavior in cities through 40 years. He has documented how modern cities repel human interaction, and argues that we can build cities in a way, which takes human needs for inclusion and intimacy into account
Save the Basin are hosting a fundraising screening of “The Human Scale” on Saturday.
When: Saturday 22 February, 4-6pm
Where: New Crossways, Level 1, 6 Roxburgh St, Mt Victoria
How much: Recommended $10 koha at the door (no advance sales).
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/201696636694730/
We hope you’ll come along – and please let your friends, and anyone interested in retaining Wellington as a city for people, not a city for cars, know about this movie.
I’m not going to say anything. I don’t have to. I just need to let this wordless Brazilian video, showing planned transport changes in Rio de Janiero in the leadup to the Olympics, speak for itself.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU4TedxVqDs&w=560&h=315]
Our Save the Basin public meeting went very well this afternoon. Despite weather that was a touch on the damp side, over 70 people joined us at the Film Archive to watch videos, hear speakers, buy Save the Basin T-shirts, talk, and offer lots of support and many great ideas to the campaign.
As we’ve said before, the NZTA is, sadly, the last refuge of outdated 1960s transport thinking: the belief that motorways and flyovers are the way to build a modern transport system has gone the way of walk shorts and the 3 o’clock tea trolley elsewhere in the world, but it’s still alive and well at NZTA HQ and in the Beehive.
The three videos we watched from Streetfilms.org, a US organisation that makes short videos about ways to make transport and urban centres better, made this point very, very clear. We recommend that you watch them and share them:
Check out the whole “Moving Beyond the Automobile” series here: http://www.streetfilms.org/moving-beyond-the-automobile/
Our new campaign video shows what a flyover – a realistic flyover, not NZTA’s lighter-than-air design fantasy – would look like next to the Basin Reserve.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-3JKaaw_iA&w=640&h=360]
Don’t like the look of it? Neither do we.
Want to do something about it? Share the video, and get involved in the campaign.
Stop Press
Did you know that Chris Moller, the chair of New Zealand Cricket who has overseen the recent PR disaster that has been Ross Taylor’s sacking as Black Caps captain, is also the chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency? On Wellington Scoop, Lindsay Shelton asks:
a) What Moller’s dreadful performance as head of New Zealand cricket says about his fitness to chair NZTA, and
b) Whether his chairing both bodies constitutes a conflict of interest.
You can read Lindsay’s article here:
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=51235
Please comment and share it – especially with cricket-minded friends.