Forced congestion Leonia Baice

Your “Letter of the Week” from Huco Sliedrecht (Weekend Herald, February 22) dealt with aspects of Auckland’s traffic woes, which are many and varied. I had wondered for some time whether the chaos created was just poor planning or deliberate policy. That question was answered recently by an affidavit I received. Apparently in 2017, Auckland Council chief executive Stephen Town was invited to a meeting of a concerned organisations and asked some questions. One question related to the effects on congestion of the various bus lanes, bike lanes and other roadworks creating further congestion, affecting travel times for car users. According to the affidavit. Mr Town’s response was “get used to it” — it is the council’s intention to reduce lanes for cars, maximising congestion to force people into using buses. Another person pointed out that a car trip, which had previously taken him only 10 minutes, blew out to 30 minutes once a transit lane excluding sole occupant cars was put in place. Again, Mr Town’s response was that council’s policy is to introduce transit lanes on all main arterial routes to encourage (force) people out of their cars on to buses by maximising congestion. So maximising congestion is the policy. Enjoy.

A P Holman, Northcote Point. My son just finished a week off school as their PE. teacher decided to make them all run on the astroturf at school at the hottest time of the day because a small group of kids forgot their PE gear. We get it, punish them, but don’t make them run on bloody astroturf barefoot. My partner went straight to admin and spoke with the deputy principal.