Letters: More bicycles on the road equals fewer cars

Your paper reported that Councillor Rick Curach (News, May 24) asked whether there was a risk of the Welcome Bay Lane reviews putting too much emphasis on "the interests of the cycling community rather than motorists".

This suggests to me that Curach does not understand the issue, which is that of traffic congestion.

From 2016-2017 Tauranga's traffic volumes increased 11 per cent and from 2017-2018, 7 per cent. Tauranga has neither the funds nor the space to build roads fast enough to deal with such increases and we are fast heading towards gridlock.

The potential solution is a multi-modal transport network - cars, buses, ferries, pedestrians and bicycles.

Research shows that the main reason people don't ride a bicycle is because they perceive it is unsafe.

If they perceived it was safe, more people would rides bicycles. If more people cycled there would be fewer cars on the road and less congestion. Therefore, "emphasis on the interests of the cycling community" is very much in the interest of motorists.

Andrew Thorpe
Welcome Bay

Consultation process

There appears to be a worrying trend emerging regarding the Tauranga City Council community consultation process.

This was highlighted in an article ( News, May 24 ), in which Max Pedersen who reviewed the Greerton Gridlock debacle last September and found the City Council's culture to be at fault and in particular "its community consultation process".

I find it disturbing that in four recent community consultation processes the only information provided for the community to consider were those in favour of the project the council wanted to undertake.

It has been reported that many residents and shop owners in Greerton would not have supported the so-called upgrade had they been told that the traffic would become more congested through Greerton.

The residents in Pāpāmoa would also agree that they were not properly informed about a recent native planting programme, and after an uproar it has since been amended.

Recently, I attended a community open day to showcase the proposed walkway from the Strand to Memorial Park.

A large poster contained a list of 12 benefits this proposed walkway would bring to the city.

In contrast, not one disadvantage was listed such as loss of privacy, security, environmental impacts and increased congestion to name but a few.

When questioned about the bias this information represented, I was told that the council wanted to "sell this idea to the public", therefore no negative impacts were presented.

An article "Fighting to save the Reserve" ( News, May 15 ) concerned the proposed building of a Marine Research and Education Centre in the Marine Park.

Local resident Jim Beard felt the community consultation process was biased in support of the university's plans and that the negative impacts had been minimised.

For the community consultation process to have any meaning in decision making, such a systematic bias of information presented to the public needs to be addressed so that properly informed decisions can be made.

Dr Meg Butler
Welcome Bay

Budget comes early

I remember growing up in the UK in the late 1950s and early 1960s and then in New Zealand, my parents on Budget night more or less glued to either the radio or TV to learn how the yearly Budget would affect our family of mum, dad and four children.

Does anyone do this nowadays? We have been told for the past two months, money being allocated to various areas, groups etc, so what is left for Budget?

We are told what organisations are not going to get any money. I guess this is progress in the media and political world.

Wendy Galloway
Omokoroa

headline

It was encouraging to read Andrew Lattimore's letter ( Letters, May 29 ) about the inexcusable delays to repairing the Mount base track.

Notwithstanding the council's apparent inaction, we are now well into our third year awaiting repairs.

So many of our citizens and visitors are unable to manage the temporary stairways and are consequently denied access to walking around their beloved Mount.

Ray Malcolm
Mount Maunganui
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