City Council cuts Walking & Cycling funds

Auckland City Council released their “Draft Annual Plan” last week, and looking through it there is some interesting stuff on what capital investment in transport there will and won’t be. For example, if you are curious to know where the money’s coming from to do the various transport upgrades ‘necessary’ for the Rugby World Cup, then this plan is the place to find out. And that’s an interesting point actually, because if one has a look through the list of funds allocated to capital transport projects, there are some clear differences between what was proposed in the 10 year plan, and what’s happening in the actual Annual Plan.

This is outlined in the table below: I have highlighted the figures that I find particularly interesting. Figures in brackets indicate a funding cut compared to the ten year plan, while figures without brackets indicate a funding boost compared to what was previously anticipated. What initially stands out to me is that the walking and cycling improvements budget (which was already dramatically reduced by the 10 year plan) has been cut further, from around $1.5 million a year to just over $1 million a year. That’s a pretty pathetically low amount in my opinion.

Other places where money has been “saved” in order to spend it on the World Cup improvements include footpath renewals, road maintenance, wharf developments in the Gulf Islands and – perhaps most horrifically – safety around schools. One wonder how many children will die as a result of this funding cut?

Many of the funding changes are explained in the notes outlined below. In some ways what these notes detail is even more worrying, as once again it shows the effects of the Government Policy Statement changes starting to have an impact – less money for maintaining roads, less money for school safety. There’s lots of “talk” in the Draft Annual Plan about improving sustainability and improving transport choices. However, one look at the nitty gritty funding indicates that it’s all pretty much hot air.

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