Lost Ferry Service Is Indictment Of Arc Transport Planning. ARC Should Immediately Offer A Subsidy To Save This Service.

For months an independent operator has provided a ferry service from Beachhaven to the city without a subsidy from the ARC.

Now, because of that lack of subsidy, the operator has had to withdraw the service – just as two other public bodies, the North Shore City Council and Auckland Regional Transport Network Ltd [ARTNL] are preparing to re-establish the wharf for permanent ferry operations.

This situation is an indictment of the ARC and its ability to organise and expand an acceptable public transport system.

Originally the ARC refused to subsidise the service because the area was already served by a bus service. It is time the ARC revisited that decision urgently and approved funds to keep the service operating.

It will be months before the new transport supremo, Auckland Regional Transport Authority [ARTA], will be operating and ready to allocate funds for this service.

In my capacity as a member of the Glenfield Community Board I have emailed the ARC Transport Committee chair, Catherine Harland, to ask her to intervene urgently and provide a subsidy to keep the service running.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>