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Monthly Meeting Calendar for 2021

The dates for our meetings in 2021 have been moved to the first Wednesday of each second month hosted at the private home of one of our members. Our meetings will start at 19:30 and end at 21:00 while the address will be sent out with the monthly meeting reminder via email.

The coming meeting on 1 September is being hosted by Ally who will have a brief talk (tbc) and provide some snack food.

Subsequent dates for 2021 are as following:

10 February
10 March
14 April
12 May
2 June
7 July
4 August
1 September
3 November

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proposed tunnel project

Dear Western Isthmus CLG members,

Watercare would like to let you know about an important project to build a new wastewater tunnel in Grey Lynn. The project is needed as the current combined pipelines in the Grey Lynn area overflow into Cox’s Creek when it rains.
The tunnel will be constructed by a tunnelling machine, between 15-60m deep underground, reducing impact on communities along the project route. The project will start at the Western Springs shaft already required for the Central Interceptor project and tunnelling will continue through to a new shaft site, required at the eastern end of Tawariki Street.
When complete it will have further benefits in the Western Isthmus than the current Central Interceptor proposal, enabling future connections in the area as the population continues to grow.

While tunnelling is not expected to begin until 2022 and work on the Tawariki site in 2023, Watercare will soon lodge the necessary consents for the works.

More information about the project is in the attached flyer. Please let me know if require any more information, as Watercare is happy to talk to you further either in person or at the next meeting. The group will be kept in touch with updates as the project progresses.

GLT Tunnel RouteDownload
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Speed Limit Bylaw – excellent video from AT

The speed limit bylaw consultation is a really important step to bringing a healthier, lower carbon transport network to Auckland, where it’ll be much more appealing to Aucklanders to actively move around our city.

With so much bad information circulating about the consultation speeds, I thought you might be interested in watching this inspiring video from AT. Their myths and misconceptions page is really good.

https://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/news/2019/03/speed-limit-bylaw-myths/

If you’re following the damaging position the AA has taken on the subject, my post in Greater Auckland today discusses the survey they are trying to use to strengthen their position. There’s much more on that subject to come.

https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2019/03/07/aa-lobbying-part-two-the-survey/
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Climate Hui – Sunday 17th March 3pm at Cityside Baptist Church, 7 Mt Eden Road

The Tamaki Makaurau Extinction Rebellion group is organising a hui of all climate action groups in Auckland. I’m one of the liaison people. We are inviting one or two people from each group. The purpose is to meet, discuss common kaupapa and see where we might join together on upcoming projects/actions. It’s on Sunday 17th March 3pm at Cityside Baptist Church, 7 Mt Eden Road.

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Climate Action Plan

The Climate Action Plan is something TT has talked/emailed each other about a few times…

https://climateakl.co.nz/

In case you’ve missed the conversations, Council has had an Ideas Hub website, done in a sort of ‘gaming’ style – where Council poses challenges and questions, and residents answer with ideas. It’s all about canvassing climate solution ideas they can consider in writing the Climate Action Plan.

Some groups, like Generation Zero, managed to get organised five months ago. We’ve talked about it but haven’t got there yet. I’ve just rounded up the Greater Auckland team to put some on a few days ago.

This issue is the reason we exist as a group.

If you think this could be a good way to further the community discussion around the changes needed, how about scrolling through the ideas and voting for what you like? If you’ve got an idea that you can’t find anyone else has suggested, that’d be really good to add in. Tips: you need to set yourself up with a profile before you can vote or add ideas. And in each section, the default setting seems to be “oldest first” – once you’ve read through them, you’ll probably want to reset that to “newest first” so you can see the new ideas.

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the huge subsidy to driving

The EU has calculated its subsidy to driving is €500 billion per year.

Also, even at the current low rates of walking and cycling due to unpleasant traffic environments:

“Due to positive health effects, cycling is an external benefit worth €24 billion per year and walking €66 billion per year.”

In NZ, the subsidy to driving per capita will be significantly higher than it is in Europe due to our sprawl and high car dependency.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800918308097?dgcid=coauthor

This information could be useful when you are face-to-face with regressive car dependent people complaining about spending money on cycleways or arguing against the changes to our systems that would boost cycling numbers, such as 30 km/hr speeds. Cycleways give us a return on investment. Roads are what cost too much.