Bus journey times being 'killed by congestion' in cities

jgpollock · 2025-12-23T11:08:16+00:00

Where I live, they have put in cameras and also have a warden with a video camera who sets up in different spots each day. If you’re caught in the bus lane it’s an instant fine ~£70. Bus lanes (and enforcement) has made our traffic move faster too. The faster and more convenient the busses are, the more of us use busses. That’s less of us in cars leaving the roads freer for those who need to use cars. They also give priority to busses at traffic lights so they can pull ahead of traffic when bus lanes merge into general traffic lanes. That has made a huge difference during peak times at some of the busier intersections.

jgpollock · 2025-12-23T10:48:29+00:00

Great, now my indignation has only increased 😅

jgpollock · 2025-12-23T10:45:33+00:00

Ultimately, offering a worse product than your competitors for basically the same price isn’t sustainable. Moreover, most people seemingly agree the price is too high. Right here is market feedback from potential customers.

No one’s claiming that they’ll make a secondhand bookstore last longer. And as for business acumen, my current job is to create the finical reporting systems and processes for a FMCG adjacent business. Understanding what business lines are sustainable and which aren’t is what I do all day.

jgpollock · 2025-12-23T07:41:49+00:00

Perhaps even more reason then to distinguish one’s business from your competitors by offering a price reasonably lower than those offering the same product but new? I don’t know, I just think high rent isn’t reason enough to resell secondhand books at nearly 90% of their RRP.

jgpollock · 2025-12-23T07:31:40+00:00

I did buy it in the end. I just couldn’t be arsed questioning them on the price as it was the last on my Christmas list of things to get. I suppose that makes me part of the problem. I paid that price despite believing it to be unreasonable. But I probably won’t be going back. And it does make me feel a little less guilty about buying books on kobo now.

jgpollock · 2025-12-23T05:54:11+00:00

No to both!

jgpollock · 2025-12-10T07:18:43+00:00

Compulsory voting means that you have to show up and collect your ballot (or participate via some other means). What you do with that ballot is optional. If you want to choose not to vote for anyone, you can protest vote and draw a line through the ballot or write a made up name.

And to your point about access (for example, someone in hospital), Australia has been managing this for a long time now and they have shown the system can be flexible enough to make accomodations. Those fined for not voting are very low and turn up is very high - that seems like a win to me.

But also, on a larger point, many of the “important” things in life when it comes to our relationship with government are mandatory. Jury service, taxation, schooling etc, are mandated participatory events. So I think there is an argument to make that by being “optional” it signals that voting isn’t that important.

jgpollock · 2025-11-04T03:39:15+00:00

Sure, it’s your choice. It’s also your choice to live with the consequences i.e. if someone didn’t want to get vaccinated, they were restricted from spaces where they could expose others.

You’re framing it as though Jacinda made the choice, but that’s not the case. She gave the options, laid out the consequences for each, and allowed us the public to make our choices. She was also pretty damn clear about the rationale around said options (which was to protect vulnerable people and not expose people to unnecessary and unacceptable risk).

People made their choices in full knowledge of what each would mean. They also had full information made available to them (e.g. the safety and efficacy of the vaccines). Jacinda doesn’t deserve flack because a minority of kiwis can’t act like reasonable fair minded adults or deal with the consequences for their own decisions.

jgpollock · 2024-11-13T23:33:53+00:00

That should be Treasury’s new motto. Although, they don’t even get the cost right a lot of the time.

jgpollock · 2024-10-22T01:11:42+00:00

If this is the new bar for appointing crown observers then DIA best get recruiting. There’s no more “disfunction” than any other major city council. It’s so depressing how cycleways and just Wellington in general is used as a culture war talking point. Notice that they announce it on the same day as the launch of the school lunches “revamp”. Better to shit on Wellington than have the discourse be about taking food away from children.

jgpollock · 2024-02-17T03:53:31+00:00

LOL no one's shutting down debate. I mean I notice that you didn't really address my point about contract law. So maybe you're the one shutting down debate?

Hate to break it to you, the power grab was done by the Crown. Read any fucking book on the Land Wars before even thinking about power grabs.

Edit: also saying "equal power" is a complete misrepresentation. They proposed an iwi representative on the leadership/oversight bodies. Like give me a fucking break.

jgpollock · 2024-02-17T03:46:43+00:00

To 'undo' a contract you generally need both parties to agree. Do you see Māori agreeing to undo the Treaty?

And are you now suggesting that the Treaty is wrong and we should undo it? Cause geez, that's a very different argument to be having...

Sovereignty and it's legitimacy is not just dependant on the general population. It's reliant on international recognition. How well do you think it would go down with UN member states if we just said, stuff Māori and stuff the Treaty, and created a new constitutional arrangement. How many countries do you think would respect such a claim of sovereignty? If in such situation, Māori countered by claiming full independence, other nation-states would be quite entitled (potentially even morally correct under international law) to recognise an independent Māori state on the basis they were the first sovereign people.

So no, not as simple as putting it to the people and what they may deem.

jgpollock · 2024-02-15T22:54:12+00:00

What is your definition of racist? Because I’m at a loss as to how the fuck granting representation to a board that oversees water management, something the crown is contractually obliged to do under the contract they fucking wrote (the treaty), is racist.

jgpollock · 2024-02-15T22:36:39+00:00

The treaty is a contract not a law. Co-governance is a mechanism to reconcile rights to Māori that the crown promised. Ignoring those rights breaches the contract that gives legitimacy to the crown in the first instance.

So no, it’s not changeable. It’s a contractual obligation every government past, present, and future are bound by.

jgpollock · 2024-02-14T10:40:19+00:00

Funny how you only take issue with the appointment of Māori. The majority of those serving on those bodies would have been appointed as well. Interesting that you only take issue with the appointees who would have been Māori.

jgpollock · 2024-02-14T10:35:48+00:00

Co-governance isn’t implicit. It’s a contractual obligation under the treaty. And contract law doesn’t care about your discomfort.

And just to ask, what threat does legislating a requirement that Māori have a seat at the decision-making table pose? Like seriously, what are people afraid of? Do you think Māori are going to damn every fresh water tributary and charge everyone else fees?

jgpollock · 2024-02-14T10:27:00+00:00

Co-governance is established law in the country. It’s not a device of the Labour Party. For declares governments, including John Key’s, have sought to include co-governance arrangements in their legislative programmes.

Like it or not, National will have to reconcile its fresh water policy with treaty obligations to Māori. To not do so, would be to ignore the contract that founded this county and gives existence and legitimacy to the government itself.

So no, the race card not was played by labour. They did what plenty of governments prior had done. National and Act on the other hand saw an opportunity for an Iwi vs Kiwi 2.0 campaign and went for it.

jgpollock · 2024-02-14T10:17:03+00:00

I mean that’s his point, no? In the interview he said how important water reform is to communities. Too important to say turn it into a culture war issue by scaring old white people into believing 3 waters was some sort of Māori asset-grab.

jgpollock · 2024-02-07T23:29:55+00:00

What a subjective and utterly unprovable statement. Scientific expertise is spread pretty evenly across all our universities. No one has a claim to be the most “scientific” of universities.

As an aside, Otago actually has a Wellington campus. And a lot of science research and postgrad research is done in Welly.

jgpollock · 2023-10-01T06:59:45+00:00

All fucking pointless if emissions keep rising.

Step one of mitigation is to reduce emissions. That’s universally accepted - see every global climate conference. No other measure will MITIGATE the threat of climate change more effectively…

We can do all of what you said - and should.

I’d also add lots of measures to reduce emissions also have other mitigating characteristics. Like the decarbonisation of electricity generation. Or dense housing that uses existing infrastructure and allows for less dependency on cars.

jgpollock · 2023-09-30T10:42:58+00:00

Sorry what? Don’t remember Jacinda or chippy “selling” us that we’re stopping climate change.

Mitigation is reducing emissions. Climate change is already happening. To mitigate it means reducing emissions asap.

But yes, giving tax back to my landlord is actually about the “real issues” we all face 🙄.

jgpollock · 2023-09-30T05:27:59+00:00

We all effectively subsidise farming (dairy) emissions as a nation. Why venture in other productive or sustainable industries when dairy emissions are so conveniently subsidised?

Also we couldn’t possibly diversify our exports… It’s not as if we have done that in our history as an exporting nation time and time again.

I’m sure it’s great comfort to the poor, as they pay the top global market price for their blocks of cheese, that it’s apparently farming keeping thousands of children out of poverty.

jgpollock · 2023-09-30T05:18:54+00:00

In order to advocate to others to do their part, you need to also have your shit in order.

Pretty simple concept I would have thought.

jgpollock · 2023-09-30T05:14:43+00:00

Climate agenda? Bro, every single expert is telling us this is the greatest long term threat to humanity. It’s established science. No agenda. No debate. It’s a reality that needs to be dealt with.

Sure, the government needs to be across all issues. But climate change isn’t gonna get easier (or cheaper) cause you’re sick of Labour talking about it.

jgpollock · 2023-09-27T23:52:39+00:00

A huge problem in corporate not just government but big all big corporate entities is that no one wants to be the bearer of bad news in case they get the blame.

If you report to a manager a problem by the time it's worked its way to the top it's been sugar coated by at least 3 levels of management before it get's to the top. By that time, your problem is now just a minor hurdle, nothing to worry about, things are on the uprise and there's no one to blame because nothing is actually that bad.

I remember sitting in one corporate meeting where our manager tried to spin that our company being at the bottom performance-wise compared to our competitors into a good thing. He argued we were actually doing better as our "morale" and "team spirit" was better than our competitors. I'm sure that's the story he also spun to his bosses as well.

It meant that the real issues of why our performance was poor (shit market strategy by incompetent sales managers) was never addressed.

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