Letters to the editor: Shame on Tauranga for ignoring alternative transport

Fear of a flat tyre forced a letter writer to walk instead of bike parts of this path. Photo / Supplie

We cycled to the most enjoyable Tauranga Home Show on the weekend using the rail bridge and Matapihi cycle path to Baypark. We had not cycled this route for several years.

Finding the cycle/pedestrian access through the Bayfair environmental disaster is challenging. The tunnel is closed and the route is well hidden with minimalist signposting.

After surviving the Bayfair parking area we found no signs to Baypark, so took the long way across the Sandhurst Drive Bridge.

For unknown reasons, the bike path stops at the bridge and does not actually continue to Baypark, forcing cyclists to share the road with trucks and speeding cars.

For the return, we tried the direct route back to Bayfair. Again, no signposting, but we eventually found a messy, bumpy, and meandering route that took us in the wrong direction, and delivered us onto a heavily gravelled landscape more appropriate for testing a moon lander. Fear of flat tyres forced us to walk several sections of this path.

Thousands attended the Home Show. We were unsurprised to note just one other bicycle. Shame on you Tauranga, and also NZTA, for continuing to ignore the needs of mobility options other than the car.

Ian McLean and Rebecca Sargisson
Tauranga

What is change going to look like?

This letter is probably written more to a convinced electorate rather than an editor.

Saturday night seemed to me to be a Covid-19 victory for a government which has seemingly delivered a death blow to an enemy that has stalked the world with death and financial mayhem.

I've read Rob Rattenbury's opinion piece 'Expect progressive change NZ's not had in many years' with the sense that this editorial sees these possible changes as exciting, needed, even vital for the health of mankind and this alarms me.

I'd ask folks to consider where we are and what we have already as a nation, and what do we truly want for our children and grandchildren, and what is this supposedly progressive change going to look like?

Does it mean more extreme laws such as the recent abortion law reform has allowed, the slippery slope that the proposed End of Life Choice Act suggests and the automatic acceptance of the proposed cannabis legislation?

If so, what do we leave for our offspring? The book of Proverbs reminds us that ''That there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death''. Prov 14:12.

John Williams
Ngongotahā

The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters from readers. Please note the following:

• Letters should not exceed 200 words.

• They should be opinion based on facts or current events.

• If possible, please email.

• No noms-de-plume.

• Letters will be published with names and suburb/city.

• Please include full name, address and contact details for our records only.

• Local letter writers given preference.

• Rejected letters are not normally acknowledged.

• Letters may be edited, abridged, or rejected at the Editor's discretion.

• The Editor's decision on publication is final. No correspondence will be entered into.

Email editor@bayofplentytimes.co.nz