John MacDonald: Cycleway opponents need to get a grip

You’ll remember all the noise about the Rolleston Avenue/Park Terrace cycleway when some Christchurch city councillors and the mayor claimed they’d been blindsided and didn’t know it was going to happen without them having the chance to give it the green light.

And the mayor went ballistic saying that council staff were running amok and needed to be reined in. And Aaron Keown and James Gough chimed in, making the same claims that they know nothing. When it turns out they did.

Which is why the head of the Transport Department gave them a good ticking off for criticising her staff in public - which councillors are not allowed to do.

And the reason the cycleway went in in the first place was because council staff thought that cyclists were going to be put in danger because of the re-development work going on at Canterbury Museum and, as we know, they took out a lane of traffic and turned it into a cycleway.

A temporary measure. For five years. Which has probably had a few people question their understanding of what temporary actually means.

Anyway, the council decided to do some consultation with the public and it gave the job of going through all the submissions and coming up with a recommendation to the local community board. Which said it thought it should stay, for five years.

And so yesterday the councillors considered the recommendation and voted to go with it.

Which will have some of the people in the Rolleston Avenue/Park Terrace area absolutely fuming. Because they were fuming at the council meeting yesterday. And, as often happens with things like this, I reckon these people have lost the plot.

I still think what the council staff have done on is nutbar. Because there is so much footpath and grass verge in that area, that they didn’t need to take out a traffic lane to create this temporary cycleway. But it is what it is. But let's get some perspective.

Do you know one guy living there told me it’s not been good for his mental health. You might have heard that yourself recently. You might also have heard me ask him how people dealing with bigger issues in their lives might feel listening to him say that.

Then, at yesterday’s city council meeting, the self-entitlement went completely next-level. One person who turned up was - in my honest opinion - just downright nasty.

Storm McVay was asked multiple times not to make personal attacks on people. She was going on about how one councillor only got onto council by a whisker.

It got so bad that five councillors walked out of the meeting. And good on them too. As it’s being reported today, they said it was absolutely toxic.

She was asked to be respectful and stop criticising staff. But she said it was her personal opinion and she was entitled to express it.

Well here’s my honest opinion - which I’m allowed to express as well - Storm McVay and the other Park Terrace whingers should be cringing.

Because, while they’re banging on about a blimmin’ cycleway, people on the other side of town in Bromley are being told that it’s going to take even longer to sort out that stench from that stinking compost plant.

There were supposed to be options on the table for councillors to consider yesterday. But that’s now been delayed until December.

These are the people, of course, who haven’t just had the stench of the compost plan to deal with. They’ve had the double whammy with the smell from the burnt-out wastewater plant too.

And after waiting, waiting, waiting, they’ve been hit with another four-month delay before the council is even going to get around to considering what to do next. They must be despairing.

But, on the other side of town, people are clutching the pearls in outrage because instead of having two lanes of traffic, they’ve got one. Get a grip people. You just don’t know you’re alive.

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