10 posts tagged “whanganui-a-tara”

I could have spent half an hour doing something more productive but them’s the breaks as a ratepayer.

Attn.: Transport Group, Wellington City Council
via email

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We’re very happy that WCC has contracted Fulton Hogan to reseal Mamari Street, Rongotai. The road was in need of repair and it was done with very little fuss or annoyance to the residents. The road workers were extremely courteous and made sure that we could carry on with our business without delay.
   But—and there’s always a but—the entry to the street is more compromised than before, certainly more so than it was after the last repair.
   The design of the entrance from Coutts Street is akin to that of a driveway now, rather than a street, which normally I would not have a problem about. In fact, for security, it makes the street look more private and out-of-bounds than it really is.
   I know that the Council and Fulton Hogan would have seen this as an improvement and I thank you for that consideration.
   There are some road safety issues as a result of the improvement, which you would not have been aware of without being a resident of Mamari Street.
   That corner (outside Leo’s and 163 Coutts Street) has traditionally collected a lot of water. Now, because of the way the entrance is designed, more water collects in the new gutter, making it hard for motorists, especially those unfamiliar with the street, to see that it’s not a regular turn from Coutts Street, but more like a driveway. I see potential for accidents as a result of this; at the least damage to suspensions at the carriageway edge and gutter. This has become apparent with the extra rain we've been getting since the road works.
   Secondly, the corner on Coutts Street between Salek and Mamari Streets is notorious for tailgating. Again, this would be something you wouldn’t have known. Some motorists will tailgate more on that corner, unaware of the pedestrian crossing there, or that the car in front has slowed to turn into Mamari Street, despite indicating. In the past one could make a hasty but safe retreat into Mamari Street if tailgated. Today, I am not so sure as the driver of the first car would have to slow down considerably more and tailgaters might not be able to react in time.
   Thirdly, exiting Mamari Street is now more difficult, especially with front-wheel-drive cars which, as you know, form the majority of modern cars unless you go to neighbourhoods with BMWs and Mercedes. The gutter and carriageway crossfall from Mamari to Coutts now make it hard for these cars to get traction and on a wet day, wheelspins aren't uncommon.
   With the increased traffic to and from the Warehouse in Lyall Bay, this intersection has become far busier and wheelspins, while a motorist is trying to join the main road, are potentially dangerous.
   It’s another thing you would not have known without living here: with the greater number of SUVs and minivans, it is not always easy to see out of Mamari Street. We often have to come out into Coutts more than we safely should to see what is approaching from the southern end. A motorist coming out of Mamari Street risks getting T-boned as some drivers from Coutts coming from the northwestern side are not always prepared to slow down for the pedestrian crossing or for motorists exiting from the smaller street—sadly, we New Zealanders can be mean-spirited drivers. But to avoid wheelspins motorists may have to come out into the crossfall or risk the front wheels going back into the gutter.
   Fourthly—and this is one that maybe affects me and one other neighbour more than other residents—the verge from Mamari Street to Coutts Street is at a more severe angle than I would like even though it is probably within your guidelines as being acceptable. My car is not a low car, but one neighbour has a Corolla with a spoiler. Even on mine I hear the tiny front spoiler (it is not a large boy-racer one, but a simple plastic air dam) scrape as I exit Mamari Street and enter the Coutts Street carriageway. I hate to think what it would do to her car which does have a larger, after-market front spoiler.
   If it was just one issue I’d have been happy to put up and shut up, but faced with several potential hazards, especially the ones that are now becoming apparent with the rain, I hope you can look into this.
   I am not sure what the best solution is, but the faux brick paving of Salek Street may be a solution for Mamari Street if the aim is to slow entering motorists. Whatever the case, I believe the entrance to the street should resemble that of a street, rather than a driveway, for safety reasons, even if I personally like the idea of living on a secluded, private-looking street.

Very truly yours,

Jack Yan
13 Mamari Street
(04) ***-****

cc for Councillor Leonie Gill, Eastern Ward

   As I pasted this in, I thought: in the old days you might back this up with a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, or send it to someone higher up than the person you were addressing it to, to get extra attention. Now we just turn them into open letters and stick them on our blogs. Power to the people?

I have had a record number of monarchs in my garden this year. This one was on one of my paths, and let me come up real close. They were actually from April, not May as the captions state.
   Earlier today, when attending a photo shoot for Lucire, what did I spot among the props?

I had to share this. My friend Jennifer Hamilton (as Baby Spice in this video) and her group, Avidiva, performed at the closing ceremony of the NZI International Sevens in Wellington this year. I did the Avidiva logo’s hand-lettering (based on Jennifer’s idea) and website (also her concept). Stars in Their Eyes’ (the New Zealand edition) Freddie Mercury is behind them. It’s really cool to see Avidiva do so well from humble beginnings.

A big thank-you to those early members who have joined the new New Zealand group on Vox: I really appreciate it. Now I am off to a very Kiwi thing: a barbecue. May post photographs later …

I must say I felt more alert last Thursday when the weather was like this.

I wish that was a joke, but it isn’t.
   I went to preview a New Dowse exhibition on transsexuality, intersexuality and the transgender community with its communications’ officer Mandy Herrick and coincidentally, was told by a friend last night about a situation at a gym in New Zealand.
   They had two intersexual (‘hermaphrodite’) clients and other patrons petitioned the owner to remove them, otherwise they would not pay their fees.
   Shame on us as New Zealanders.
   We go around saying how open-minded we are, scoff at other nations, point out how we had the world’s first transsexual MP—but no, when we confront intersexual people in our own neighbourhood, we do exactly what pre-US Civil Rights racists did when they hung out ‘Whites Only’ signs.
   For crying out loud, these two clients were born this way—and you’ll be even more shocked to learn that the gym opened itself to a human rights’ violation by cancelling the two people’s memberships.
   Imagine if they were taken to court and how much business they would have lost if word got out.
   Wouldn’t it have been better to have pointed out to the prejudiced clients that if they couldn’t accept the situation, then they could take their business elsewhere?
   Or go so far as to build an extra changing room and encourage more open-minded clients all round?
   I was pretty shocked that this went on. 
   I am not prejudice-free and I will freely admit to thinking, ‘That looks a bit odd’—as I did when I looked at some of the work that the New Dowse will be showing. I don’t know anyone who has told me they are intersex, hence my surprise. Then again, I don’t go around asking. I get over it. I accept that this is part of God’s plan and everyone is created in His own image.
   And there is a clear right and wrong in this case. Hopefully as time goes by more of us will look at this story and equate it to the racism of earlier times.

This Autocade article brought back memories of the World Trade Fair at the Wellington Show Buildings in 1979, which I attended with my mother. Škoda, Hyundai and Volvo showed off their cars at the Fair, which in my opinion was never equalled with subsequent school holidays. I picked up the Hyundai Pony brochure and believe it had this photograph in it.
   What happened to those great, open-to-the-public trade fairs in New Zealand?

Hyundai Pony. 1975–85 (prod. unknown). 3-, 4- and 5-door sedan, 5-door wagon, 2-door pick-up. F/R, 1238, 1439, 1597 cm³ (4 cyl. SOHC). ItalDesign body—Giugiaro also did the original Volkswagen Golf—was smart and crisp for Pony’s 1975 launch, but it hid a structure that essentially followed those of the Morris Marina, mated to Mitsubishi running gear. The brainchild of George Turnbull, formerly of British Leyland, who believed that a simple platform such as the Marina’s was far more adaptable than BL believed. Engines aside, pretty dated technology even when new, but sold on simplicity and cheapness, and took Hyundai into many export markets in the 1970s and early 1980s. Usually takes the credit as the first all-Korean car, despite the foreign input. Pick-up added 1976 after original hatchback, wagon in 1977, three-door in 1980. Replacement Pony II began coming on stream in 1982, after which original range rationalized and replaced by 1985.

Problem: teenage girl takes a huge tumble off her bicycle on Wellington Road, near the traffic lights, as she heads east.
   Here are the issues that raises. First: I was the only motorist who stopped and this was around 4.40 p.m. In other words, there would have been plenty more who would have witnessed the high school student having her fall, especially on a road designated as part of the State Highway.
   Secondly, being a man, I can’t touch her, especially when she says it’s her thigh that hurts. In an age of political correctness, you can no longer care or even make contact. The best I could do was lift up her bike, though I offered the usual help (‘Can I call your parents?’).
   The only other person who came to her aid was a woman living nearby, who asked if she wanted to rest up in her home before she made the rest of the way back. She declined, though as I left I did see her make a cellphone call, probably to family.
   I am glad that she was wearing a helmet, mandatory in New Zealand for cyclists.
   But I am a little annoyed that we didn’t get an extra motorist stopping, and that I felt uncomfortable, because of all the news about bleeding nonces and sexual harassment, that I couldn’t take this girl by the hand and help her up unless she asked first. I felt a bit easier when I had the woman come by and offer her help because at least there was a witness. I look back and I do not know where the boundaries lie any more.
   When fear of the law prevents us from acting as humanely as our instincts will us to, something is wrong.

Some more photos to share from around Wellington, New Zealand, and to show it’s not always sunny!

   This is actually Chews Lane but I thought it was strange seeing a second sign, on the opposite side, reading Tow Away Lane—but in the style of a regular street-name sign. Hence the filename Odd Name for a Street. Across the road is the local HQ for the Fairfax Press.    A lot of cities have fleets of so-called “green cabs” and Wellington is no exception. There are these ugly little eggs running around called Toyota Priuses, which may have looked good for about, ooh, one Oscar telecast’s arrivals. After that, they got pretentious.
   This one has the licence plate 0 SMOG. But it’s a hybrid, so when the petrol engine is in play, it does generate something out of the exhaust, surely? I know we have unleaded fuel and catalytic converters, but from what little I know of emissions this still generates more pollution than the regular Ford Falcon LPG cabs that run around Wellington—which, technically, should have this plate. If Wellington’s main taxi company is clever, it can tell us how many LPG Falcons it has running and compare the quantity to the fleet of these Green Cabs.
   I think Green Cabs is doing a good thing, generally, and certainly a Prius’s interior room is sufficient for most journeys, but I can remember the 1980s when most cabs here ran on natural gas, be they Holdens or Fords, and generated far less pollution than modern cars. We have, of course, the National Government of the 1990s to thank for their demise, and the Labour Government to continue its “rival’s” (ha ha) folly.    People my age will remember the Trades’ Hall and how it was the site of a bombing in the mid-1980s. Caretaker Ernie Abbott was the victim of the after-hours blast. I don’t think it was ever solved and I wonder if it qualifies as our first terrorist bombing.
   Trevor Loudon shares some theories on his blog but he admits they are hearsay. He refutes the rumour that it was a right-wing group and instead points to Marxists and various pro-Soviet groups committed to unseating the Muldoon Government. The irony is that the Labour Government that followed proved more anti-union and right-wing than they might have expected. One commenter on Mr Loudon’s blog wrote, ‘If your theory is true Trevor then the irony of the outcome was classic. They got a Labour Government alright, but it contained good’uns like Douglas, Prebble, Bassett, De Cleene, Caygill & Moore.’
   However, Loudon is also right in responding, ‘True Spirit, but the Soviets also got NZ's anti nuclear policies and the destruction of ANZUS. Which do you think the Soviets cared about most?’
   Whatever the case, we began losing a lot of our values and the integrity of our national system that decade, after the change in government. We can trace the growing gap between rich and poor right back to 1984, when we moved from a reasonably egalitarian and fair society to one which has an underclass and domination by foreign corporations.

Some shots of Wellington, New Zealand, from the last few weeks. We begin with a city view from Mt Victoria, the corner of Courtenay Place and Kent Terrace, a beautiful full moon rising as viewed from Greta Pt, and two of a beautiful monarch butterfly in my garden (I see these daily).