OVER TO YOU

Public transport

Many people will, like me, be pleased that Nick Smith has so far not pushed for the replacement of our wonderful walkway/cycleway up the old railway route with a motorway, as he has always advocated, turning lovely Nelson into a mini-Los Angeles.

Most experts agree that rapid public transport must replace the never-ending cars. Making Waimea Rd into a clearway with priority lanes for buses, multi-occupant vehicles and trade vehicles would be a good first step. However, a bus terminal with a Park and Ride facility, coupled with a rapid shuttle service to the Nelson CBD, would be essential to encourage car drivers from Richmond and further afield to not take their cars to town. There is a big area of open land adjacent to Quarantine Rd that would be ideal for the purpose. I fear that the council will, as usual, sit on their hands!

Kerry Bateman

Nelson, January 22

Covid threat

New Zealand deaths during 2022: workplace accidents – 58, or about five a month. Drownings – 93, or about one every four days. Road deaths – 367, or about one a day.

Covid-19 – 57 deaths in seven days, or about eight persons per day, over the last month – and although during the last seven days this has moved back to about three deaths a week, this is still three times higher than the next-nearest cause of accidental death.

While any accidental death is a tragedy, Covid-19 is far and away responsible for the most accidental deaths (and that does not account for the growing evidence of a high number of long-lasting and damaging cases).

I enjoyed the Buskers Festival on Sunday evening at the Church Steps, as did a large crowd of 2000 to 3000 people wearing no masks. I appeared perhaps to be the only person wearing one. So is the media letting us down by covering all workplace, drowning and road deaths, but largely neglecting stories on the elephant in the room, Covid-19?

Bill Evans

Nelson January 24

Climate change

I share Adrian Faulkner’s concern (Letters, January 21) that both national and local authorities appear to have relegated climate change to the too-hard basket, and instead are blatantly promoting more air and car travel, more car yards, more large-scale events that attract more people – more, more, more, with more floods, more landslides, more ruined roads, more droughts, more heatwaves, more wildfires as a result.

We elect people primarily to keep us safe. Why are they willing to put our long-term future as a species in jeopardy?

It’s not a lack of skill – communication experts could easily get us all to rethink our consumer habits – it’s a lack of will. Or perhaps a lack of imagination.

Like Adrian, I’d like to see an investigation into why politicians are universally shying away from this responsibility, instead of uniting and leading us into a much more localised lifestyle, which could be just as satisfying as our current mindless rush.

Kate Malcolm

Nelson, January 26

Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was based on the propaganda used by the Nazi Josef Goebbels, who said that ‘‘people will believe lies that sound good rather than the truth which sounds bad’’. So Putin and his henchmen started the war on the excuse that Ukraine was developing into a Nazi regime – a good lie that made the war seem just to the Russians, even with thouands of civilians killed. Anton Hyman

Nelson, January 23