http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cf...jectID=10362105

can anyone here dispute this?

It's an insult to compare Wellington to that inbred, paedophile island called Pitcairn!

(Dammit! Why didn't the British drop a neutron bomb on that island and sent all those lowlifes to hell?)

I agree with Adolf on both counts (wiping out Pitcarin and the huge insult it is to Wellington to be regarded as something that can be compared on a simple scale to anything related to Pedophile Island).

A friend of mine originally from overseas, who is very cosmopolitan, is utterly obsessed with Wellington and thinks that it compares well to his old stomping grounds in Europe.

haha Wellington service is crap, by far the worst I've seen anywhere in the world (excluding tiny little towns, but they're mostly better at it). In Rome the waiters might be sirly, but at least they'll serve you. You probably get awesome service if you're Kate Blanchett though.

The arts are okay, better than Auckland but no world stage.

Public transport is heaps better than auckland, but crap by international standards.

Public transport in NZ is generally crap compared to overseas.

Goddammit! That island was founded by some sailors who illegally took Tahitian and turned their backs on the Crown through mutiny. As for comparing it to Wellington, you simply can't. At least every major city in NZ has courts, courts in which the sexual criminals on Pitcairn had to be sent here for trial.

Hahahaha, that'l teach those windy bastards, I bet they've got the same tendencies as the pitcairn carnies.

Tall poppy syndrome, brother. New Zealand's public transport is pretty good quality, with no pickpockets on busses or trains and such. Comparing our public transport on a national level to Singapore's or Hong Kong's is ridiculous, because their states are larger than ours (or close to in terms of population) yet have a tiny land area while simultaneously having a high level of state intervention in the economy historically, particularly in land transportation. Something that got wiped out for us in the 1990's by National.

In peak hour traffic, most Chinese cities have busses that run the same rout every 5-10 minutes. There's also the choice of the subways for those who are in a hurry.

wtf?!? NZ public transport IS crap compared with just about any overseas country, high population density or not. who gives a shit about pickpockets, just watch your stuff. I'd rather have the bus not half an hour late rather than have no pickpockets.

Yeah. Aucklands public transport IS crap. In fact, transport over the entire country needs to be sorted (although Aucks is the only city I have been to so far really).

Come now, Doctor, busses run on time now, and now you have those leet electronic things along most routes that actually pretty accurately indicate when things are arriving. Trains are on time, as me and SDR discovered, and ferries are too.

I like ferries. And I like electronic things.

But I hate the lack of trains. I am a train girl.

Aucklands public transport system is fucked!

I went to Perth in the middle of last year, fuck they have an awesome public transport system. We were driving down a motorway where the train lines were in the middle and in the space of about 10 minutes during rush hour 3 trains passed us on each side of the track. Also at every train station is a bus station where the buses are timed to the trains. It's also a fuckload cheaper than Aucklands transport system.

Melbourne has extremely fast, cheap and comfortable trams. We had trams in Auckland not so very long ago. My point being, when I find the people who tore up those tracks for the sake of more traffic, I shall piss on their graves. That was one of the worst public infrastructure decisions ever made in Auckland.

If the pickpockets operate on public transport then they would just about operate at any public place and that's the reality of the problem.

busses are nowhere near on time man, and they are ridiculously expensive. Try catching the 017 from Herne Bay to the city any day of the week.
And the trains are on time but they don't go to most of the places that people are likely to want to catch them to. They're basically just for getting into the city and back if you're lucky enough to live near a station.

Lets take Birmingham for example.
A smaller city with less people.
New St station is a hub station, with trains running all over and the country, and more importantly, all over the Birmingham area. There are about 4 lines (off the top of my head) that run at a 10-20 minute frequency throughout the day. Sure, they can be delayed, but there will be a train soon.
With the buses, last year if I walked 10 minutes, I could get to almost anywhere in Birmingham, and I could be pretty sure that I'd get there pretty quickly too.

Aucklands problem is that the transport it has is either too slow (bus) or doesnt go anywhere useful (trains). Auckland is one of the very few cities that I have been to that has no direct and fast train service into the city. Even Southampton (tiny airport) has a direct line into the city centre!

I almost feel compelled to start lobbying politicians about this. Really, I do.

I'll help :D

seriously there are few things I hate about this country, but the public transport in Auckland is one of them (and probably the worst one)

The problem is Hannoir, is that most of these goddamn 'public transport' things are actually privately owned but just subsidised (inefficiently I might add) by the regional authority to run along certain routes. The RAM left wing Auckland council group has been trying to set up a free bus system that runs through Auckland, but people are too dumb to take the idea to heart.

Well try living in Te Atatu when the buses come every hour (except rush times when they are pretty regular). Not only do some of them arrive 20 minutes late but they also sometimes miss the stop completely! Trains used to be awful in 2004, never on time! And it's so expenisive! $10 a day to get into town and back!

i lived there for 2 years, it sucked nob skin, then i moved to swanson which is even worse, buses like 4 times day! *dies*

*Imitates Billy Connelly's voice and accent.*

"Pitcairn Is., eh? Not many people live there. On an average day, it's like, 'I'm not divorced, but she's still my daughter'."


(I still fucking hate Pitcairn!)

WTF? Did I miss something? How did we get to talkign about PItcairn
(I actually have nothing against Pitcairn :P)

WTF?
i assume you are talking about the island as in the land mass and not the people..... if you have nothing against the island as in the issues, you are either living in a bubble or someone i am pleased to announce i dont know :P

Haha... Well personally I really do feel that I don't know enough about it to make an educated opinion. Jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else who says what they did is wrong without taking into account circumstance etc isn't really my style. And I really don't have the time to sit around and take everything into consideration so I'm sitting on the fence.

ahhhh ignorance is bliss eh

with lethargy like that you sound just like an ausa student lol

well i just spent 2 days in wellington and i didnt think it was boring at all :)

Woohoo, another converted to Wellingtonophilia! :D

With regard to Pitcairn, Miss Illusioned, Pitcairn is a very, very fucked up place. I was quite interested in the island for a few months back in the late 90's, and even then I thought the place had some serious problems. One particularly interesting fact to remember is that roughly 3/4s of the islands male population has been tentatively accused of rape, but there is not enough evidence to bring forward for some of them. One of the primary legal defenses of the Pitcairnese was not to deny what happened, oh au contraire, they said they'd raped the women a) for centuries as part of a 'cultural sexual initiation' (thus they could keep on doing it) and B) that British laws didn't apply on the island.

Does that change your neutral opinion of the god-forsaken rock that it is ? :P

The Pitcairnese need to be colonized or something. We'll call it the 'civilized man's burden'.

Ahh that whole rape thing is a bit different then. If it was jsut sleeping with underaged girls (who technically wouldn't be underaged if it was their laws) I could understand that. Raping women is a toally different scenario.