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Papanui trials Go Smarter scheme
People in the East Papanui area of the Shirley/Papanui
Community Board are taking part in a pilot scheme to see
how small changes to the ways we travel can help the
entire community. Called Go Smarter, the community project aims to make
better use of existing local modes of travel and balance
car use with other forms of travel. People taking part in
the pilot are recording their everyday travel.Those records
are then analysed and suggestions made about how it
could be done more efficiently. “Smarter travel is more efficient travel”, says the project
material. “That means making fewer trips and spending less
time and money on travel. It doesn’t involve giving up using cars, but
just making smarter use of them and balancing car use with other
forms of transport.” The scheme encourages people to plan and combine trips, cut out
ones that are not needed, travel at off-peak times to make trips faster,
work out trips which would be cheaper and faster on
foot or by bus or bicycle. Community Board chair Yvonne Palmer says Go
Smarter, a regional council project being supported by
the Board, is an idea which shows small changes can
make a big difference. “Take something like your local school. Every morning
there’s a jam outside with parents or caregivers from not
far away dropping kids off. “That’s one example of how we could change, just
taking the time to walk or set up a walking schoolbus,”
she says. “Travelling around the city’s getting slower and more frustrating every
year,” she says. “Unless we start changing, it’s only going to get worse. If we were all
a little smarter about how we travel we could free up the roads, save
money for the city and ourselves and maybe get a little healthier too.” |