Re: cycle

Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, February 27th, 2009 - 36 comments
Categories: economy, employment, transport - Tags: ,

According to Stuff: “Another idea on the table [at the Jobs Summit] is a $50 million cycleway built the length of the country. It would provide 3700 jobs and would take two years to build. The government is keen on it for its tourist potential.”

A summit attendee writes:
“Oh dear. Less than four months in and the National Government is already bereft of ideas. How to solve unemployment? Let’s build a $50m cycleway the length of New Zealand! Whoopee! Somehow, we’re going to build this thing for just $25k per kilometre! Somehow, we’re going to expect that a $50m investment – just $12 per New Zealander – is just the boost that this country needs to arrest the slide towards high unemployment levels and a deeper recession! And over the two-year course of this project, if the workers received the entirety of the $50m in their pockets, they’d get paid $6756 per annum for all their hard work and toil! Oh, how in ten years time we’re going to be swimming in gold coins like Uncle Scrooge, crying ‘Mercy, it was that blessed cycleway that was the turning point!’

I realise this is just an idea at this stage. But it’s not even a half baked idea. It’s one of those demented ideas that crosses your mind during a daydream then you keep your mouth shut when you realise that whichever way you look at it, everyone’s gonna think you’re either unbelievably stupid or that you must be joking.

And there you have your answer. It IS a joke. The media who reported it clearly have no sense of humour or irony. Not even a subtle one. After all, National building a cycleway? You’ve got to be joking. They’d rather invest $50m on a rat and stoat breeding programme in the Karori Wildlife sanctuary. Actually, best not give them ideas….”

36 comments on “Re: cycle ”

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  1. Brett Dale 1
    27 February 2009 at 12:21 pm

    Awesome Idea, spend 590 Mullion dollar for a cycleway, get people out of their cars, people will get fitter, it will create 3700 jobs.

    Its way better to spend money on this, than to give 8 million dollars so we can have another series of outrageous fortune.

  2. Steve Pierson 2
    27 February 2009 at 12:33 pm

    Brett. Just slow down. I know I’m the past master of the typo and poor spelling, but in your rush to get a rightwing line up you’re challenging me for the title.

  3. Redbaiter 3
    27 February 2009 at 12:35 pm

    There ya go see. Just like I said. All worthless air headed talkfest bullshit.

    • Matthew Pilott 3.1
      27 February 2009 at 12:57 pm

      Yeah, why’d they bother with the private sector if this is the best it can come up with…

      Ah Brett, that will create 3700 jobs that pay about a third of the minimum wage. Just for a second, why don’t you think before typing? Do you really think that’s an amazing idea, and you’re just really chuffed about it? Really? You’re not thinking – “that’s a bit lame – we need much better ideas that that”? Are you so desperate for the Right* to look good that you’ll clutch at straws such as these…because it doesn’t help your cause

      *Redbaiter, you are ordered to ignore that reference to “Right”, I know that it’s not your idea of the Right but to people who consider themselves supporters of the Right it is. Failure to comply will result in your horse being boiled down to create Glue That Binds Us To The State.

  4. Brett Dale 4
    27 February 2009 at 12:51 pm

    Heck that is bad.

    Still I think we should cut money from NZ on air, I dont think we really need another scribe album.

    This cycle track should be a good idea, if the Greens came up with it, people here will be loving it.

    • burt 4.1
      27 February 2009 at 1:52 pm

      If it were a Green party idea National would have said it was a stupid idea.

    • Felix 4.2
      27 February 2009 at 1:53 pm

      First, I’m not sure if Scribe has had album funding from NZ on Air (He’s certainly had video funding but I doubt you have any idea how NZ on Air music funding operates)

      Second, even if that were the case, how do you propose we cut the NZ on Air budget in a way which guarantees that the money which would go toward a hypothetical Scribe album is eliminated? (and I don’t dispute the worthiness of such an endeavour, by the way)

      I suggest that the easiest way would be on a racial basis. Any thoughts?

  5. George Darroch 5
    27 February 2009 at 12:53 pm

    It is a good idea. It’s the kind of thing that should occupy a line in the budget – but it isn’t a strategy, or an idea of the size that is needed.

    This reminds me a lot of Rudd’s pointless talkfest a year ago.

  6. Rich 6
    27 February 2009 at 1:06 pm

    Also, are they going to narrow Highway 1, acquire a strip of land to one side, or carve a new route through the bush?

    Or have those details not left the half-bakery yet?

  7. bill brown 7
    27 February 2009 at 1:31 pm

    Rip up the tracks on the main trunk?

  8. BLiP 8
    27 February 2009 at 1:32 pm

    The idea of a walking track from one end of the country to the other has been around for decades – is the suggestion of improving it into a cycle way the best that the Goobers Gab Fest can come up with?

    We’re all fucked if it is!

  9. Steve Pierson 9
    27 February 2009 at 1:33 pm

    Rich. Like Key said (more or less) this morning on Natrad: ‘details are for losers’

  10. leftrightout 10
    27 February 2009 at 1:35 pm

    The best response to that article:

    “If you’re looking for ideas with tourist potential, I think a hydroslide the length of NZ has much more potential than a boring old cycle-way… If I was a foreign tourist looking for a travel destination with a difference, I think hydroslide is a better seller than cycle-way.

    Also, imagine going over Cook Strait in a hydroslide. You could get out and play with the dolphins. You wouldn’t be able to do that if you had a big metal bike with you.”

    • Felix 10.1
      27 February 2009 at 1:42 pm

      I could do it on my bike because I have an invention. It’s this button you press and you sprout wings and you can fly. You can fly into outer space, to the moon, to Jupiter if you like.

  11. Felix 11
    27 February 2009 at 1:37 pm

    Ok, it’s NOT a big stimulus plan idea and it going to do sweet bastard all to slow the slide into recession and it’s not even half baked or half thought out, but still, wouldn’t it be cool to have a cycleway running the length of the country?

    In fact let’s go one further and make it a loop.

    Also, why can’t the govt stimulate the economy by doing lots and lots of small things? Does it all have to be “think big” style grand scale infrastructure to be considered valid?

    • QoT 11.1
      28 February 2009 at 2:42 pm

      I’m all for doing lots and lots of small things, Felix, I think the problem is they’ve only got one on the list so far.

      • Felix 11.1.1
        28 February 2009 at 3:39 pm

        I hear you. And they hardly needed a “prime minister’s job summit” to come up that. That one could’ve come from a “reading the herald on the bog on a tuesday morning summit”.

  12. higherstandard 12
    27 February 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Felix

    “I think it’s got to be a number of little things: the jobs will be lost in little bites right around the country, and they will be saved by little bites,” Mr Norgate said.”

    . just a sound bite . but it does have that ring of common sense about it .. common sense does tend to get lost amongst the insanity however.

  13. leftrightout 13
    27 February 2009 at 2:05 pm

    Felix, having cycled 1000 Km’s in two months I can tell you a cycleway the length of the country would be largely a waste of money. Where I am once you get outside of the city center you are largely the only cyclist on the road for many kilometers. And come winter only die-hards are out there on their bikes.

    That 50 million would be better spent on protecting jobs like the ones at Swazi, F&P etc.

    • Rich 13.1
      27 February 2009 at 3:26 pm

      Maybe the cyclists could be given free Swazi coats to wear.

      And they could have F&P equipped launderettes every few kilometres to wash them in.

  14. burt 14
    27 February 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Let me think about this. A cycleway will encourage tourists becasue it’s green and sustainable…. just a bitchen shame that the same tourists need to fly half way around the planet to get here….

    I love bikes, I have a garage full of them, I ride a bike to work most days, I ride in the weekends for fun. I think it’s a great idea BUT – we are on the wrong side of the planet to be marketing environmentally sustainable tourism with a straight face.

  15. Steve Pierson 15
    27 February 2009 at 2:12 pm

    felix. It might be cool but it’s going to cost a lot more than $50 mil for pretty limited value. They’re meant to be linking up the DoC routes to make one the length of the coutnry eh? That would be cool. take a while though

  16. burt 16
    27 February 2009 at 2:30 pm

    Steve P.

    Are you saying a walking track would be cool but a cycle track would be of limited value ?

  17. Matthew Pilott 17
    27 February 2009 at 2:38 pm

    They’ve already done the walking track, look up Te Araroa (the long pathway) if you want’ to know where it goes.

  18. Redbaiter 18
    27 February 2009 at 2:40 pm

    Fix the roads so the speed limit can be raised to 150 kph. That would do much more for the economy than any walking track for hippies.

  19. jimbo 19
    27 February 2009 at 2:41 pm

    God I hope the Jobs Summit is coming up with a bit more substance than this. Sure, some of these “small” ideas might be worthwhile I’d really hope the attendees were working on decent policy and structural ideas that can then be refined and debated in Parliament.

    Our response to the financial crisis should not be a series of schemes and pet projects.

    • Matthew Pilott 19.1
      27 February 2009 at 3:10 pm

      Fully agree, jimbo. Even though we may disagree on what constitutes “decent policy and structural ideas” but it would be nice to have at least a few to argue about…

      Redbaiter – why have a speed limit? People should be able to choose for themselves how fast they can drive. Admittedly there are a few dodgy corners here and there that could do with straightening out…

      My captcha was ‘female $25’. The recession must be hitting hard…

  20. Steve Pierson 20
    27 February 2009 at 3:34 pm

    burt. linking some doc tracks costs next to nothing. And, it is already open, my bad.

  21. Redbaiter 21
    27 February 2009 at 3:38 pm

    “Redbaiter – why have a speed limit? People should be able to choose for themselves how fast they can drive.”

    Wow, Mr. Pillock is a fan of privatising the roads. Great stuff Matty.

    • Matthew Pilott 21.1
      27 February 2009 at 3:49 pm

      “Wow, Mr. Pillock is a fan of privatising the roads. Great stuff Matty.”

      Na, just the personal responsibility that goes along with choosing your own speed limits. None of this pc namby pamby nanny state control over our nation’s accelerators. It’s not like there are downsides (viz. externalities) to ‘individual responsibility’ that require state intervention, right?

  22. Tigger 22
    27 February 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Nothing on Kiwiblob about the cycleway yet. Could it be that they are all hiding their hands in horror over Key thinking this is a ‘top’ idea?

    And did anyone else see the ‘Scoring the Cabinet’ piece Audrey Young did that they comment on? How did Judith Collins get an 8/10? Bennett gets 7/10 for causing the first major embarrassment of the new government?

  23. greenfly 23
    27 February 2009 at 4:56 pm

    Rich -” half-bakery ” – that’s beautiful!

  24. Adrian 24
    28 February 2009 at 5:31 pm

    Great idea of John Key’s, came up with it himself apparently(no wonder Lehmans went tits up). You see ,if you join up all the park cycle ways you have to cross private farmland to do it! Top class vote winner that. As most of the other writers have said, if this is as good as it gets, we’re seriously fucked.

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