Buses in Manners Mall
I’m sad that Manners Mall is going to be butchered by having buses run through it.
I can just remembers the days before it went pedesterian only.
The only upside is the possibility that a bus may run over one of the street kids who loiter in the Mall.
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Tags: Wellingtn City Council
June 5th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
This is excellent news. Manners mall is a dirty, ugly wasteland which serves no function other than as a haunt for emo kids with nothing better to do with their time than hang around fighting and hurling obscenities.
Anything that potentially straightens the strange convoluted path the buses take between Lambton and Courtenay is a big step in the right direction IMHO.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Never thought of it like that, interesting. Mightn’t they move to Cuba St?!
THIS might’ve been interesting though:
Ms Prendergast said the shoddy mall – which would have undergone a $1m-plus makeover if not opened to buses – would now be improved with wide footpaths.
?
June 5th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I have heard that more of Cuba Street going to be pedestrianised as “compensation”?
June 5th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I’m not. No matter what they did, or would have done, manners mall has ALWAYS been uninviting. Its the kind of place that filth would always accumulate no mater the makeover it had.
Cuba is different. Cuba has its own energy, which is why it, and not manners, has always been a success.
Kinda. Lower cuba will have a speed limit of 5km/h imposed and will be paved etc.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Lower cuba is to be a shared area with cars traversing at 5km or less.
Great idea as cars and pedestrians coexist so well together on New Zealand roads….
Manners Mall would have been a much better area if a five year plan to remove the shit outlets that currently exist along there and replace them with restaurants/bars and nightclubs was dreamt up.
Manners receives a large portion of sunlight, even during winter, unlike the dark Cuba Mall which really only gets sunlight in the late afternoon on its Eastern flank. Imagine how much of a boon it would have been to have a perfect halfway point from Lambton Quay to the eastern end of Courtenay Place for people to stop and have a bite to eat enjoying the great sunshine away from the fumes of buses that currently choke all and sundry on both sides of Courtenay Place.
Turning those restaurants into nightclubs for the weekends, it would have ensured a safe zone for nightclubbers with having cuba/manners totally pedestrianised with no chances of getting hit by a taxi or a cruising boy racers.
Unfortunately, just another example of short term thinking.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Manners Mall is a shit hole for every no hoper in Wellington and this “community” bullshit is just code for people who represent no one trying to get their way over everyone else.
It was designed to be a main acess route and it worked bloody well that way for a damn sight longer than it did as a pedestiian hang out for glue sinffers and wannabe muggers. Thanks god its going to stop screwing with the traffic flows!
Bloody Wellington predestrians should learn to get the hell out of the way of cars anyway. Wandering the streets like wool blind sheep and getting bitter when they get beebed at.
Its also the site of a significant vicotry of New Zealand troops over a foriegn invader and as such should be preserved as a “Street”.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
“The only upside is the possibility that a bus may run over one of the street kids who loiter in the Mall.”
ha ha..so bloody true.
Mind you, promoting violence is not usually acceptable here DPF
[20 Demerits]
June 5th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Murray – you have to be taking the piss regarding pedestrians in Wellington right? Wellington is a pedestrian city – one in which it is quite easy to get by without a car save for a few instances. And what is with this attitude that city’s should have “streets” in them in the first place? Bloody walk! Most European cities manage without quite well.
June 5th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
What CJasper said. Manners Mall could have been great if they’d restricted the kind of businesses that could operate there when it was first created. Instead they let it turn into some sort of semi-industrial wasteland in the middle of the city.
But whatever happened to the idea that was floated at one point (IIRC… maybe I don’t) of a light tram service running through at least part of the city, which I’m sure was going to include Manners and Cuba malls? Nowadays you can get ones which run on wheels rather than needing tracks. Smaller, more frequent trams that don’t need wide roads just so they can get round corners like the buses would surely be better for Wellington streets.
Or small, free (to the passenger) commuter buses. I can jump on one half a block from my home and it’ll go through the city in an east-west circle and take me home again. If I want to go north-south I can just get off at a stop that serves both. And they run on CNG too so it keeps the greenies happy.
Only downside is, being run by Council mandarins, they stop at 6 pm. So not only can you not work late in the CBD and use one to get home, you can’t use them to go to dinner or a movie and home safely. Then of course they hire consultants to tell them why the inner city is an empty wasteland every evening… but that’s a different moan.
June 5th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Wellington is a pedestrian city????
I lived there for thirty five years, I love the place, there are a million reasons to live in Wellington however the weather is not one of them.
If there is any city in NZ that is NOT a pedestrian city it is Wellington.
June 5th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
You guys are idiots, just because someone’s not like you it doesn’t mean that they should be locked up. Some of you need an “educational” trip to turkmenistan
June 6th, 2009 at 12:18 am
Has DPF ever tried to catch a bus through town at peak times? It’s quicker to walk because they get so jammed up. It’s ridiculous they ever were made to take a circuitous route around Manners Mall.
June 6th, 2009 at 10:28 am
It only takes 10 minutes to walk from Whitcoulls Lampton Quay to Reading Theatre. I say leave the pedestrian mall as it is and have police walking around to deter muggers.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:07 am
No NOt1tocommentoften I’m not, the ROADS are your first clue. The pedestrians simply pay no attention to them and just wander out at every intersection. Being too stupid to walk around without wandering into someone elses space does not denote ownership.
You try being a professional driver in a city where the people walk around in a bloody stupor all day.
Somewhatnotsothoughtful WTF are you talking about? We’re talking about Manners street being reverted to its intended function, you’re going off about people being locked up.
Apprently we’re all idiots and were should be sent to turkmenistan (presumably to be locked up) because we are different to you. You do know that “irony” doesn’t actually mean its got lots of iron in it don’t you?
June 8th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
“The only upside is the possibility that a bus may run over one of the street kids who loiter in the Mall.”
“Street kids”? Didn’t think they still existed. The teenagers who hang around Manners Mall are a pretty mixed bag of emos and ordinary kids, pretty mild and unthreatening. Been walking through the mall on a regular basis over the last couple of decades and never had any real trouble. Think those who portray it as a cesspool of crime are either fantasising or of a very nervous disposition.
Bloody ugly though, the last council ‘makeover’ seemed designed by someone who had spent 20 years working for the corrections department.