This rental car reminds me of the message to drive less, use public transport. The trouble with Auckland and her history of quarter acre houses meant that the city is spread out very widely. Compounded with our public transport of buses and trains are not very efficient. The water engineer and I work in different directions and at different times, so it hardly makes sense to use the public transport.
We did our bit of driving less not because we were greenies, but because it made economical sense. Cars are very expensive in Singapore, when we bought our brand new Hyundai Sonata, with the same money, my brother Joseph joked that we could buy a merc in Australia.
Back before Sam was born, we drove a "weekend" car. The car registration plate was red, and by paying less money to the Government, we could drive our car only from Saturday afternoon to Monday before dawn. For the rest of the days, you need a twenty dollar coupon to use the car. It worked out quite well when we car-pooled with our friends driving the two girls in two separate schools. We would drive two days and I did my shopping on those days. Then Deb went to another school where we could car pool, and we converted the car back to a normal car.
Here in Auckland, we are stuck between a shopping centre and a shopping mall. If I do not need to buy a lot of things, I trust my worthy bus NO 11. (my two pair of legs.)
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