News & Discussion: Adelaide City Council

[david]

Attached is the Sturt Street Bike Lane Petition which was recieved by Council on 10 August.
There were 159 signatories on the petition. At the time of its reciept the project was nearing completion1
David

petition0180 (Small).JPG (53.52 KiB) Viewed 2911 times

[jk1237]

how amusing, 159 signatures against a bike lane. I guess thats how many people work in those retail premises along that part of Sturt St, that now have to walk an 10 extra metres to where their car is parked

[Prince George]

Concern about the crossing next to the school seems like one that could do with a reasonable answer, but I hope that it will be something like distinguishing that portion of the bike path to clearly mark it as part of the crossing (for example, elevating it so it's like a bike path speed-hump) rather than scrapping the whole idea.

It's interesting to compare this project to the bike path that was recently constructed in Grand Street, NYC. The Grand Street project is the first protected bike lane NYC has built along a narrow street; the bike lane was previously next to the traffic lane, now it has been moved to be between the parking lane and the side walk (good pics here). That change has led to quite a number of protests and complaints (so, please, nobody start saying "only in Adelaide" ), ranging from people essentially complaining that double parking now interferes with cars rather than bikes to a recent protest convened by one of the city council members.

That protest's complaint was that the bike lane makes pedestrians feel less safe (and in this regard, it's similar to the petition). The problem for their position was the statistics that clearly refute it.

But do the data back up the perception? In a word, No. According to DOT's study of Grand Street, injuries are down 28.8 percent since the protected lane was installed nine months ago. Which only makes sense, because the parking-protected bike path has narrowed the traffic lane, sending cues for drivers to slow down and making a safer environment for pedestrians and cyclists.

Obviously, NYC's streets are a rather different kettle of fish than Adelaide's, so I'm hardly going to claim that such a statistic could be repeated on Sturt St. What is interesting is how the complaints continue in the face of such a large drop in the actual rate of injuries. As one commenter on that post says "Why doesn't Gerson expend some political energy on those streets and avenues in his district that haven't seen a proven 29% reduction in injuries?”.

[Omicron]

That petition should be ignored, simply because of all the spelling and grammar mistakes. Fools.

[Wayno]

Attached is the Sturt Street Bike Lane Petition which was recieved by Council on 10 August.

Thanks David - what is the councils stance here? Does this present as a roadblock against future bike lanes? I presume the council is gathering feedback from a variety of perspectives to rate success?

The 2nd point in the petition probably make sense - bikes (just like cars) should stop for pedestrian crossings.

[Nathan]

That petition should be ignored, simply because of all the spelling and grammar mistakes. Fools.

That's because they can't get to the school...

[david]

Attached is Councillor Notes - Issue 33

- The changing face of Local Government
- Food Miles Add Up
- National Trust forms Adelaide and Inner Metro Branch
- Some recent decisions including Council on 24 August.

David

NOTES FROM COUNCILLOR Issue 33.pdf

(123.41 KiB) Downloaded 138 times

[Xaragmata]

Attached is Councillor Notes - Issue 33

Very good reading, the pieces on emasculation of councils / government replaced by governance / citizens reduced to consumers etc.

Expands to "stakeholders" (former citizens) being "empowered" to do whatever those with the power decide to "empower" us to do, with
"global governance" edging out national / state and local government, with democracy dying as a result [my thoughts].

The bit of news that caught my attention a few days ago was the suggestion that state & local government stop collecting taxes - to be
centralised & possibly an increase in the GST. I don't mind paying taxes, but object to paying levies for this & that (River Torrens catchment
& the like, which doesn't appear to do much except put out glossy promos). The central collection authority (ATO) would hold the real power,
"empowering" states & local governments to do what they are told with the funds they receive from the ATO.


http://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/conten ... tation.htm

State and local government taxes

* Centralise the collection of taxes.
* Create consistency across States and Territories.
* Make government more accountable for revenue raising and spending.
* Abolish State taxes and replace them with a higher rate of GST.

Sorry about going off on a tangent - this might result in the complete emasculation of the states & councils.

[AtD]

Why I dislike the "food miles" argument:
It overlooks that the first 90% of the food miles are by bulk freight, eg loads of the vicinity of 300,000 tons for intercontinental shipping and by lorry in loads of around 20 tons. Yet the last one or two kilometres, from the supermarket to home, is loads of maybe 10kg (0.01 tons). Food miles per kilogram shows that the majority of transport is done by the consumer themselves.

The second reason I dislike the 'food miles' argument is it overlooks why we import food to begin with, in favour of a universal “trade is bad for the environment” view. A topical example being rice - there's a very good reason why we should import it!

[Prince George]

It overlooks that the first 90% of the food miles are by bulk freight, eg loads of the vicinity of 300,000 tons for intercontinental shipping and by lorry in loads of around 20 tons.

That does depend on the food in question. For example, strawberries run a race against time and must travel any significant distance by air (even, say, from Queensland, let alone California).

[AtD]

It overlooks that the first 90% of the food miles are by bulk freight, eg loads of the vicinity of 300,000 tons for intercontinental shipping and by lorry in loads of around 20 tons.

That does depend on the food in question. For example, strawberries run a race against time and must travel any significant distance by air (even, say, from Queensland, let alone California).

I'm no foodie, but taking the example of strawberries, how is the free market able to satisfy demand for strawberries off-season? There are three ways I know of:
- Import them from where they're in season
- Grow them in a controlled environment, i.e. a heated glasshouse, or
- Store them at for a great length of time in a cool room with an inert atmosphere, as they do with many fruits (if that's even possible with strawberries)

All three methods are energy intensive compared to seasonal domestic production. If one wants to discourage energy intensive foods, I think the message should be “don't eat off-season foods” and looking at why the market demand exists, rather than this notion of counting “food miles”.

(Perhaps this is a discussion for The Pub?)

[omada]

atd said:

Why I dislike the "food miles" argument:
It overlooks that the first 90% of the food miles are by bulk freight, eg loads of the vicinity of 300,000 tons for intercontinental shipping and by lorry in loads of around 20 tons. Yet the last one or two kilometres, from the supermarket to home, is loads of maybe 10kg (0.01 tons). Food miles per kilogram shows that the majority of transport is done by the consumer themselves.

The second reason I dislike the 'food miles' argument is it overlooks why we import food to begin with, in favour of a universal “trade is bad for the environment” view. A topical example being rice - there's a very good reason why we should import it!

Oh, so considering food miles is pointless is it? I take it you'll use your little justification to just consume what you want? Canned tomatoes from Italy? Oranges from California?

[Wayno]

In an environmentally conscious world an ETS would place a larger tax on foods that travelled a long way. Under the same model, foods grown in the murray darling basin may receive a higher tax due to water shortages...

[crawf]

Attached is the Sturt Street Bike Lane Petition which was recieved by Council on 10 August.
There were 159 signatories on the petition. At the time of its reciept the project was nearing completion1
David

petition0180 (Small).JPG

Oh dear.

[Howie]

A few of us at S-A got invites to goto the ACC 3D Model launch tonight, it was a great mixer and we got to see for the first time the just released version of the 3D Model. It is still currently underdevelopment so you should be able to see more detail in the model soon.

What I found most impressive was the data overlay, in particular those in regards to height limitations throughout the CBD. The texturing of the buildings left a little to be desired as they were mainly aerial photographs which had been photomatched to produce a model, but I guess we set the bar pretty high over here at S-A as we built our early model of the CBD using a catalogue of 15megapixel DSLR photographs shot from street level. The model also shows shadowing like all good models should. There will be i'm told overlays for services like gas, electricity and so forth which is good. Performance wise the model runs quite well on the hardware on demonstration, much as you would expect from Google Earth maybe a tad slower in rendering all the models.

Still a few minor bugs to iron out from what I can see (e.g. doesn't seem to load up in my version of Firefox 3.5).

The whole setup runs on a system called Terraexplorer, and you'll need to download a plugin to view it.

But overall, the potential is there for it to be a truly great tool. And the fact that proposed developments will go onto the model so you can see buildings currently at the DA stage is fantastic, I can see it being very very very useful. Actually, it's probably to me the best thing about this tool, the fact that developers need to submit a model when putting together their plans to goto council da.

All in all, congrats once again for this Australia first move into cyberspace.

You can check it out for yourself here :
http://www.adelaidecitycouncil.com/deve ... model.html#