Thoughts on Urban Transit Infrastructure Design

Here are some personal observations of various urban/city design factors, and the relevant considerations. I'd drafted a few other versions of this in the past, but this one seems to fit the bill quite nicely (+ got finished), so this will be the one that goes up...

Inspired by this headline, here are some of my current thoughts on these matters:

* Most places reachable in < 10-15 mins, *by any means*  == Yes, agree that's the ideal scenario  (and is what life was like growing up here in Christchurch NZ). I've found that, especially for anywhere you need to go frequently, having to spend more than > 10 mins each time is quickly quite aggravating + draining.

In that light, the monster 40 min to 2.5 hr commutes that Americans frequently claim they have are therefore quite unfathomable. (Then again, maybe that's why there are so many messed up folk out there doing drugs and alcohol... again, things that never made sense)

* Many places reachable in ~10 min, but ONLY by walking / 2-wheeled contraption (and hailing a cab/Uber is not an option as distance too short for them to bother) == Personal hell. It's an annoying way to live... Grocery shopping is particularly aggravating (as you're limited to the 1-2 small bags you can reliably carry + manage to pack/unpack several times in a hurry)

Waitangi

A surprising insight I saw just yesterday for the first time, was when someone referred to Waitangi (aka "founding place of New Zealand in 1840" - see "Treaty of Waitangi" for details) as the "sad water place".

"Sad water place". If you think about it, and break down the meaning of the constituent parts of that name, that's actually what it means. "Wai" = water,  "tangi" = a event filled with sadness / mourning for the dead.

Hmm... The more you think about it, the more different meanings you can suddenly read into these things...  Oh the things you don't realise until much later - much like song lyrics, and finding old stuff from the past.

Thoughts on Plumbing and House Design

The past few months have been an (unwanted) deep dive into the world of household plumbing, and the various issues around it. Here are some things I've learned.

1) Debugging complex legacy plumbing and debugging complex legacy codebases are equally hard

 

2) At some point, you're going to need to check ALL the pipes

 

3) Most home designs make access to pipes HARD. Especially new/modern builds! 

For example:
    - Downpipe inspection panels hidden behind a wall. To access these, you must first drill + cut various wall panels to reveal the pipe, in order to find where the panel sits... then, when all is said and done, you then need to call in a builder, plasterer, and finally painter (complete with multiple rounds of sanding, phone calls, and time away from work/life waiting)

    - In contrast, older houses here at least have an underfloor crawl space, that can typically be accessed through some removable panel (similar to manhole covers). That said, in many cases, you end up needing to remove carpet to get to it, which does still mess things up a bit.

 

4) Some plumbers come better equipped than others. As a result, I've come up with a list of the neatest bits of equipment I've seen that IMO it'd be nice to have on hand, so they can do their jobs easier.  (see later)