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Takes a strong environmental stance, advocating for free public transport ultimately and increasing car travel costs to level the playing field between transport modes. He emphasizes the climate emergency requiring 80% consumption reduction, supports congestion charges for urban areas, and advocates for citizen assemblies to democratically develop solutions while prioritizing reduction of air and noise pollution that causes one in ten deaths in Aotearoa.
Thanks for reaching out. My name is James Cockle and I am a candidate for ORC and part of The Radical Action Faction alongside Jen Olsen (running for DCC) and Zenith Rose-Wills (aka Vampire candidate running for Mayor).
As a councillor, I will be advocating for more active and public transport. I want to see reliable, frequent and low cost buses. Ultimately, I believe public transport should be free. I want to make active transport easier and safer with more cycle lanes and public walkways. I also believe we need to level the playing field by increasing the cost to travel by car (with exemptions for those with disability needs) so that active and public transport users are not forced to subsidise car users (which is currently the case when costs from traffic accidents, pollution and other factors are taken into account).
As a councillor on the Otago Regional Council my top priorities for walking and cycling infrastructure are to enable more of the existing infrastructure to be enjoyed by increasing public transport, and reducing emissions and noise from internal combustion engines so that there is less other traffic on the road. Ultimately, we are in a climate emergency and will need to reduce consumption by about 80% overall to survive climate and ecological breakdown. Transport is a great place to start. By investing more in public transport and inter-regional transport (like rail) we can make it easier for people to reduce from a two to one car household, or from a one to zero car household.
In my view, the modifications to George street have been a huge success, anecdotally I have seen much more activity in that part of town in the evenings, and it makes the city centre a much more pleasant place to be. I’d like to see more of that kind of approach, as well as reduction in urban and residential speed limits. I’d like to investigate alternative traffic management processes around city zones and parking that could increase revenue while discouraging car use, for example congestion charges when entering urban areas. I want to encourage electric car use as well as move the bus fleet to become electric. As a person who predominantly walks as my mode of travel, I am very conscious of the air and noise pollution produced by combustion vehicles. One in ten deaths are caused by air pollution in Aotearoa. I would advocate to reduce the speed limit in urban and residential zones from 50 to 40 across the board. Along with my colleagues in The Radical Action Faction I believe in community decision making and so I would also advocate for citizen’s assemblies where ordinary people come together along with experts to discuss the issues and offer solutions - like a jury service for democracy. I believe this will help improve on many of the ideas I have suggested here.
Many thanks,
James