 |
| Nothing but green lights all the way... |
It was the ultimate first-world problem; my usual on-ramp had been closed for the construction of a new tunnel. I could understand that. I'm a reasonable man. Everyone loves a tunnel. I was prepared to forgo my usual easy access to the Northern Motorway for a few months if it meant I got to whiz through a tunnel once a day at the end of it.
Not that it was easy mind you. Overnight I'd gone from a one-light zip around the corner for my motorway access, to a five-light bumbling weave through Auckland City's North Western CBD. In terms of time, we're talking one minute's drive compared to ten.
Nine more minutes makes you late for things. Like my 10:15 Body Balance class. You can't arrive late to Balance - you miss the Tai Chi warm-up and disrupt everyone's positive energy flow during Standing Strength. Try striking a half-decent Swan Pose after that lot. You're dreaming. There goes my flexibility. Not to mention my core.
Nine more minutes ads up. That's three quarters of an hour every week... For weeks... Months... It'd all be worth it though. Hour after hour of my life literally wasting away at Victoria Park traffic lights, but with the ultimate reward in sight; a faster drive home. (Through a tunnel)
Then the tunnel opened. Then my on-ramp didn't. And after a while, it still didn't. What was going on here? I started to get a whiff of something. The pong of conspiracy was in the air.
My worst fears were confirmed in a short Campbell Live article one evening. A man from Auckland Transport was interviewed and admitted not only had they not decided WHEN to re-open Wellington Street, they hadn't even decided IF they would re-open it. At this I did an actual double take - well, the digital TV version of a double take - I rewound my MySky to make sure I'd heard him correctly. I had. Surely this couldn't be right. Could it be I'd never get my nine minutes back?
Not on my watch.
For the first time ever, I decided to make a difference. I actually made a submission on the Auckland Transport website. That's right, unbelievably, they thought there might be some people out there who didn't want the on-ramp re-opened. It's not like it wasn't already there. They'd spent millions reconstructing it to feed into the tunnel, now they were just a bit worried people might start using it. Some idiot seemed to have a theory about the risk of congestion at peak times, although it was a theory that didn't seem to be founded on any actual facts.
This was a farce, plain and simple. So I took action. Drastic action. I started a hashtag discussion on Twitter.
I don't know if I can take all the credit, (obviously I can't, but I can try) but our voices were finally heard. The oppressed masses of Auckland's North Shore, egged on by @glennzb demanded action and amazingly, against the odds, for once, we got it. We submitters were notified the Wellington Street On-Ramp would indeed re-open after all. Why we then had to wait months after that, god only knows.
The point is, I feel like I did something. Like I had an opinion, and for once it mattered. Common sense never wins out over suffocating bureaucracy, except this time it did, and I'm reminded of that every time I drive home from work. I got my nine minutes back... Can't wait to waste it watching DVDs and melting cheese on stuff.
 |
| Behold the beauty of a fresh new on-ramp |
No comments:
Post a Comment