Manly Jazz Festival

Day two of Manly's Jazz Festival. Car-free for a tiny bit of beach road, pedestrians pushed at the Corso end to the wharf as well against pushy motorists. Maybe, one day they will come around and declare public space for people every Sundays as in other world cities and not just for smelly cars. Maybe the pedestrian areas will truly have no motors in them.

The roaming bands could move with crowds of pedestrians and entertain without the emission intensive stages with hot, blinding spotlights on the audience (in the day-time), that took days of petrol-fueled erection time. As before - a lot of the amplified music had noise pollution and chemical pollution as a side-effect, as the petrol generators buzzed on. Many push bikes were out feeling free to move along the beach 'road'.

Bad planning, to place really loud amplified music on top of the penguin habitat.

Sydney Botanical Gardens

The Royal Botanic Garden is only 15 (nautical) minutes away from Manly. Pedestrians are the main obstacle to the flow of motorised traffic IN the park. A huge building site WITHIN the garden is very noisy. The industrial site-ambiance drives one to the sunny lawn areas (no plants).

It is a pity, how such a mid-city green gem could just turn into an extension of the noisy, dangerous city. It is not easy finding Australian flora, but maybe it is all locked up in the commercialised constructions. Plants seem secondary to the event spectacles that are drawing the paying crowds to the theme park.

The bats are running out of trees and the native Ibis, robbed of their wetlands are declared another "nuisance species". The chicks are just suffocated in a 'cheap' way.

And the restaurant!- better not go into detail.

The image via Google might show how the garden is eaten up in time, not from the outside, but from within.

Update: A decline in visitor numbers - what a surprise. abc 190509

Immersing in Manly's smells, sounds and...

Olfactory ambience: sewage stench, at Shelley Beach, at Manly Beach and North Head. Dense plumes of nicotine at every doorway and corner.

Auditory ambience: A frenzy of buildings noises overpowering the surf all along the beach and walkway. Have a nice holiday!

Walkability: All “pedestrian zones” were parked out with numerous vehicles all over. Air-pollution in your face when they throw the motors on to “warm er up”.

Bathing: Shelly Beach is a shit and water mash-up. What a waste for such a nice beach. Too poor to keep up infrastructure with population growth?

Garbage and Plastics pollution: Convenience food and drinks encouraged and the anti-products socialised.Image 2: Surfers against sewage
Previous:
On the use of water and the creation of dead zones
Drinking water, sewage and emerging bugs
Daily beach reports

Robbing the public of walkways and green space

The land-grabs of foreshore Sydney is on everywhere. The small strip of green along East Esplande, Manly Cove is being conquered with the help of 4 WDRs and a lot of semi-commercial boating gear. Both the green strip and the pedestrian strip are being regularly squatted and people are excluded from using it. No one there to enforce the right of people walking (in the very few spaces set aside for them) and enjoying the Cove.
What would happen if one of these SUVs ran over a person on the 10 km/h walkway-only?
Why is the public excluded from using the green strip and their walk-way?
Watch them make an aqua-car park out of Manly Cove and the jetties swallow up the blue harbour. Count the boats...
Image: Manly Cove aerial shot via Google Images, 0807

On crossing roads in Manly and surviving it

For most of our centuries, walking was our primary means of locomotion. With the advent of motorised transport our known planet became restructured to suit the flow of these auto-mobile devices. People underwent a century of reprogramming their central nervous system in tune with the flow/jam of the 'traffic'. Children (video) and adults (video) were being instructed to fit in to motorised society.

In the meantime, the-to-be-negotiated-space is more akin to a war-zone. Armoured urban tanks ram places, plough into people and houses, mount curbs and pin pedestrians to the wall. Raised, with metal roo-bars they conquer every cm of the urban territory. Council attempts to stud pedestrian zones with iron posts. On the roads "The pedestrian remains the largest single obstacle to free traffic movement."

So it you do wish to cross a road with traffic lights in Manly, here is an instruction that might increase your chances of survival:

• Wait till the traffic lights turn green for pedestrians, not breathing too much
  
• Do not cross!
• Check for cars, 4WDs, (especially the black ones with tinted black windows), because they might just want to go in spite of any lights.
• Remember, they just throw in their weight.
• If all seems clear and the lights haven't changed to red.
• Run – looking right/left simulaneously.

Pedestrian Council of Australia
Perils for Pedestrians, videos
The End of Suburbia
Video via Endofsuburbia, "We're literally stuck up a cul-de-sac in a cement SUV without a fill-up" - James Howard Kunstler
Update 110907 Urban planner concludes:
"..Sydney's roads, footpaths and traffic light configurations all conspired to favour the car... They were a product of traffic engineering that was refined in the 1960s and '70s but never reviewed. Sydney pedestrians can spend as much time waiting to cross the street as they do on the move because the car has ruled the city unnecessarily for 30 years. Measures to alter the balance between drivers and walkers range from the radical - doubling tax on fuel - to the subtle - altering the configuration for turning left and right off thoroughfares."

Air pollution caused by cars in Manly - consequences

Most carers of small children in Manly seem to drive 4x4s. The town and the suburbs are pedestrian-hostile environments. The 'pedestrian zone' and bike paths are usually parked on.

A study found that 4x4s pollute the air we breathe more than other cars, in carparks and in our shared urban environment. “Pedestrian exposure to high levels of these air toxics within parking garages is of concern because of the proximity and intensity of the vehicle activity within the semi-closed environment...These pollutants (carbon monoxide (CO), particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pPAH) and several volatile organic compounds (VOCs)) include known and suspected carcinogens” (Science Daily)

Another project by Dr.B.Ritz found “Women who lived in regions with high carbon monoxide or fine-particle levels — pollution caused mainly by vehicle traffic — were approximately 10 to 25 percent more likely to have a preterm baby than women who lived in less polluted areas."

Update 300907 Elsewhere they outsource safety and emission tests together with pink slips to private garages.Where there is a will...

Automobile apartheid & sacrifice

In a world resembling a giant car-park with a mash-up of roads, personal freedom to mobility, especially of the young, the not so young, specific groups and any non automobile users is severely limited.
As David Roberts from Grist puts it:

"Automobile apartheid means anyone who wants mobility through walking, cycling, or public transportation suffers discrimination in a built environment designed for automobiles."

"First-class citizens drive motor vehicles, second-class Americans walk, cycle, or ride public transit."

The human sacrifices of ancient civilisations are condemned, the human sacrifices to the auto-mobile 'god' becomes a mere risk calculation individually and systemically.The 'road toll' and 'road kill' fill the 2cm margins of the tabloids.

"In the past 25 years some 175,000 pedestrians have been killed on America's roadways." (grist)

Children and over 70's suffer the highest fatalities. Specific ethnic groups are also over represented in these stats.

• How is it possible that 10 cars roll over a woman on a highway and do not notice anything?
• What system can issue a $5 jaywalking ticket to a 73-old pedestrian that is bleeding on the ground after being hurled into the air by a car.
• What mind must one have to knock down an eight-year-old disabled girl with her walking frame and flee the scene?

Trees are pet-hates of road authorities: Make a 'clear zone' to improve 'roadsafety' and fell 20 km of them.

Compulsive passive driving for all who need to breathe further reduces life quality and life expectancy for all.
previous:
Motorised transport and its regulation
4 WDs

Air bags for pedestrians

In Europe, new design standards for cars are being proposed so that when pedestrians are driven into, the car does not immediately kill them or cause head injuries. Bonnets are to be raised above engines so they can bend on impact. Bumper bars are to be broader so that pedestrians are not immediately thrown head-first onto the engine compartment. At present, car design promotes head injuries as low bumper bars hit pedestrians' legs first knocking them off their feet so the head impacts the front of the car.

Another proposal is external air bags which open on impact on the outside of the car to protect pedestrians. This would be an extra cost for motorists, who would prefer to spend the money on car sound systems, but could save many lives and prevent injuries.

In Manly there are still a large number of vehicles which are designed for war on the roads. Car-armouring such as bull bars and heavy weight ensure the survival of the toughest. The guaranteed losers of these street battles are pedestrians and cyclists, especially children. For each one of the thousands of deaths on the roads and adjacent footpaths, about 100 people are injured, often seriously and permanently.

Although in Australia, the discussion about carcinogenic diesel dust particles has finally just begun, the topic of dangerous streets has been long kept quiet. The aim of design changes is to protect living beings without air bags who dare to go out into car-dominated public places.

Where are the car-free spaces around here?