Why Rudman’s wrong about Queen St

I generally agree with what Herald columnist Brian Rudman says about transport and urban matters as they relate to Auckland. He’s a thoughtful columnist who’s not afraid to share his opinions, but at the same time generally makes sure what he says is backed up well. However, I find myself strongly disagreeing with what he says in today’s column – entitled: Making Queen St a pedestrian mall won’t fix tired old hick town look. He starts by having a bit of a moan about Auckland City Council’s Queen Street upgrade of a few years back – and makes some pretty valid points:

It seems like only yesterday that the ever-suffering ratepayers of the old Auckland City bowed to the wishes of the city planners and the Queen St shop-keepers and paid out $43.5 million to tart up what was once dubbed the Golden Mile.

Out went the old volcanic-coloured paving slabs and in went the grim Chinese granite replacements. Footpaths were widened, nikau palms planted and there was much back-slapping and self-congratulating all round.

At the time all this happened I wasn’t particularly concerned about these matters, but I remember thinking that it was odd to spend such a large amount of money on an upgrade that appeared to make such relatively little difference to Queen Street. Sure, the footpaths were widened, more seats were put in and (the cheapest but best thing of all) pedestrians were given much more priority at the intersections, but really not much fundamentally changed about Queen Street: it was a four-lane highway down the middle of Auckland’s city centre and it still is a four-lane highway – if a rather slower moving one (which is a good thing). Bus lanes were originally a critical part of the project, but the council never had the guts to proceed with them in the face of completely irrational opposition from a small number of shop-keepers.

However, despite the limitations of the Queen Street upgrade project, it seems to have worked. At a meeting of the Auckland Future Vision Committee of the Auckland Council a couple of weeks back, the council staff promoting new plans for Queen Street said that pedestrian numbers were up by around 25% along Queen Street compared to how things were before the upgrade. I guess on that note it hasn’t been a complete waste of money – as one of the big aims of the upgrade project was to attract more pedestrians to Auckland’s main street.

Rudman goes on to talk about how Queen Street’s allure as a shopping area has reduced over the past few decades, particularly as more people have chosen to travel to shopping malls instead:

The latest proposal is all part of the orgy of master planning and visioning that’s going on within the bowels of the new Super City, as bureaucrats and politicians jostle – not just to demonstrate they’re doing something, but also to try to get their personal hobby-horses near the top of the pile.

Back in the dark ages, Queen St was indeed the premier shopping street in the region, probably in the country. It was so busy when I was a kid that the city council painted white lines down the centre of the footpaths to ensure people kept to the left, and patrolling policemen – remember them? – ordered gossiping shoppers who were cluttering the streets outside the main department stores to move along.

Aucklanders’ shopping habits have moved on since then and it’s hard to see that opening up the main thoroughfare to pedestrians will alter 50 years of history and bring customers flooding back to the CBD.

I always think that playing the “Queen Street versus shopping malls” game is a bit pointless. Queen Street is never going to be able to compete with the shopping malls for attracting people who live in the suburbs and are wanting to do a weekly supermarket shop or easily be able to find free parking. But at the same time, the shopping malls are never going to attract tourists the same way Queen Street does, or attract high-end stores like Louis Vuitton and Gucci that have established on Queen Street. One would imagine if Apple ever decide to establish an Apple Store like the ones overseas, they’re probably likely to put it on Queen Street.

Given there’s little point in Queen Street retailers trying to compete with the shopping malls, one would think that the main way to attract customers to the central city would be through offering a point of difference. The city can be the place you come for urban vibrancy, for the unexpected, a place well serviced by public transport so you can have a few drinks without having to catch a taxi. Generally, one would think that a place like this wouldn’t be dominated by cars (that’s what mall carparks offer), but open for pedestrians to mill around easily. Maybe the reason why Queen Street has lost so many shoppers is because it’s tried to emulate the malls too much – and hasn’t become different enough (the shops between Shortland Street and Victoria Street often make one feel like they’re in a mall). Increasing the amount of space dedicated to pedestrians, whether though full pedestriansation, more shared spaces or whatever, increases the point of difference between Queen Street and the suburbs – it makes it a more distinctive and interesting place to visit.

Rudman’s other issue with another potential upgrade to Queen Street is, quite justifiably, the cost:

Reading the draft report, I couldn’t help thinking, aren’t we already spending untold tens of millions on flossing up Queens Wharf for the same purpose, to say nothing of the $80 million gone on the remodelling of Aotea Square?

Surely what Queen St needs to turn itself into a world-class shopping street is not another injection of public money on another infrastructural makeover. What might help is more input from the building owners and their merchant tenants.

The wide new footpaths are fine – though a white line up the middle to encourage people to keep to the left would help. And with all the traffic-slowing crossings and lights now installed, it’s hardly a busy road any more.

What I said at the end of the $43.5 million makeover still holds true. Much of Queen St looks like the main street of a tired old provincial town, slowly dying since the state highway through town got bypassed.

The beauty of how I think we should approach pedestrianisation of Queen Street is that it’s really cheap. We start off by simply putting out a few water-filled bollards blocking the street off to traffic at around 7pm on a Friday evening and a few signs saying “Queen Street closed to vehicles until Monday 6am”. We also buy a fair number of pretty cheap metal chairs and spread them over the street – like what they did in Times Square, New York City: Should this prove to be popular, then we consider where to go next. Perhaps we keep the “cheap and quick” approach but extend it to all the time, perhaps we just extend it to a couple of hours over lunch during weekdays. Maybe we find that it’s such a success we want to make things a bit more permanent, so we pave over the asphalt in something a bit more pleasant and stick in a few amenities like a fountain, or some trees.

The point is that by adopting a “step by step” approach to pedestrianising Queen Street we can take things slowly and carefully. We can see whether it’s popular on summer weekends for an absolute minimum of cost and disruption before taking things further. We can see what impact this has on retailers’ sales (I suspect the impact will be positive), we can see what happens to pedestrian numbers. Really, we don’t have much to lose and potentially heaps to win. Brisbane’s main street (coincidentally also named Queen Street) was pedestrianised years ago and its rents are about twice those in Auckland per square metre – a clear indication that pedestrianisation can very much work.

Rudman should be a bit more positive on this matter I think. While the upgrade to Queen Street a few years ago spent a lot of money on relatively little change, even that has generated some pretty impressive results. Taking things to the next step doesn’t have to be anywhere near as expensive though – as we can ensure any changes area easily reversible should things not turn out so great. Why not give it a go?

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