This is a Guest Post by planning historian and consultant Chris Harris.

On the day of Len Brown’s election last year, a Herald feature pointed to a “stark divide” between North and South in Auckland. On the 24th of March this year, a Herald editorial also reported that “Coastal sprawl will defy plan for Auckland,” by which was meant a continuation of RONS-fuelled growth up the eastern bays of the North Shore, as far as Mahurangi and Matakana.

What both these articles point to is that Len’s team seems to have a strong focus on the South and West, while their government-backed critics seem to think that Auckland’s suburban future lies mainly north of the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

This difference of perspective is a manifestation of a very real and growing division between two Aucklands, one white or East Asian and prosperous; the other poorer, browner and, these days, much more likely to be unemployed. The one made up of settler landlords, the other made up of their indigenous tenants. The one conservative, the other nationalist and radicalised.

You might think that this is something that might point to trouble ahead, a recipe for a kind of future South-Africanisation, Northern-Irelandisation or West-Bankification of Auckland’s ethnic geography, that we should spend almost anything to avoid.

Yet by a strange irony, it seems that the Government and Auckland Transport are planning to spend billions to entrench the growing divide between the Two Aucklands through their current roading plans. Thus,

  • AMETI (the Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative) will reinforce links between the mainly white and Asian suburbs of Pakuranga and Howick, and the mostly prosperous central suburbs of Auckland. It will do nothing to connect Pakuranga / Howick to the browner parts of Manukau.
  • The proposed Road of National Significance (RONS) to Wellsford via the Hibiscus Coast, and the additional Auckland Harbour road crossings that it implies, will increase the importance of the once more mainly white and Asian North Shore, and also strengthen the North Shore’s links to the CBD and the most white and Asian central suburbs of Auckland.
  • At the same time, the Waterview Connection and widening of State Highway 16 will increase links between the blue-collar, brown-neck West and the blue-collar, brown-neck South, via Onehunga.

This probably does not reflect a conscious plan to bring about growing segregation and estrangement between Two Aucklands. Rather, it reflects the fact that most roading plans have a short term and risk-averse logic. They meet current travel demands that link middle class settler suburbs to office parks, and poorer, indigenous suburbs to warehouses.

Competition for the centre makes things worse

This problem would not be so serious if it were not for the fact that there is very severe competition between suburbs for access to the central area. With roads alone, there cannot be access for all. Our existing divide is largely a reflection of that fact; planned roads are merely going to make it worse.

Ever since the Auckland Harbour Bridge was widened to eight lanes in 1969, the North Shore has effectively laid claim to a big slice of Spaghetti Junction, with the rest dominated by traffic from the gentrified suburbs of the former Auckland City.

On the other hand, Otahuhu and all other points southward languish behind a tandem pair of four lane bridges on the Southern Motorway at Mount Wellington, which are date-stamped 1954 and 1955. The Southern Motorway has six lanes south of these bridges, and six lanes north of them. The Mount Wellington bridges have never been widened and there do not seem to be any plans to widen them in the future. Rumour has it that the retention of a four lane chokepoint at Mount Wellington helps to keep Spaghetti Junction from being overloaded by South Auckland traffic, which is instead diverted to Penrose.

There is a similar four-lane 1950s bridge on the North-Western motorway, between Henderson and Te Atatu. Long-established plans the relieve the pressure by means of an additional road crossing over the Whau River between Glendene and the Rosebank peninsula—the sort of road scheme that makes sense—were also blocked. The four lane bridge at Te Atatu is going to be replaced with a wider one. But only at the same time as the Waterview connection is completed, so as to drain traffic to the south and keep it out of Spaghetti Junction. And it seems as though the Whau River crossing will be put on hold some more as a result, though the Auckland Council draft Annual Plan (Whau local summary) states that Auckland Council is “advocating” it to Auckland Transport. (Which also appears a rather odd way to be referring to a Council-Controlled Organisation, but then again it does tend to suggest who’s boss, really.)

On the other hand, the government’s proclamations of a Road of National Significance (RONS) up the Hibiscus Coast, and additional harbour crossing, are clearly intended to boost development on an ever-greater North Shore out to Mahurangi and Matakana (whatever the local planners might have to say), and also to reinforce the North Shore’s links with downtown Auckland. And AMETI will add to the already privileged access enjoyed by Pakuranga and Howick, which have their own on-ramps north of the Mount Wellington chokepoint.

Will we then see the Mount Wellington chokepoint survive to celebrate its centenary, the South Aucklanders forever pushed to the back of the queue? It’s a paradox, given that Manukau is in the centre of the wider mega-region, which includes Whangarei, Hamilton and Tauranga.

Whatever we spend on the North Shore, it’s mainly going to be for dormitory suburbs. The North Shore simply isn’t in the centre of the mega-region in the same way that Manukau is. And that only makes the RONS an even crazier idea, since another long skinny motorway is precisely the wrong way to handle dormitory-suburb commuter flows.

Rail’s potential to unite the region

In contrast to the tendency of the roading projects to reinforce future social division (not to mention future congestion), the rail projects have the potential to draw Auckland together. Thus, the CBD rail tunnel is intended to greatly speed up access to the CBD from the West, even though the CBD is white collar and the West is blue collar. And it is also intended to greatly increase the number of trains that can run on the railway system throughout greater Auckland, including (potentially) the North Shore.

The North Shore developer lobby, who mostly seem to be rail sceptics, should actually be dropping the RONS like a hot potato and coming in behind a Shore rail link to the CBD tunnel. It’s the only thing that’s really going to allow several hundred thousand more to live on the Shore, if that’s what they want.

More trains will make it much easier to travel between Auckland the CBD and Manukau, and further improve access to the West. And more trains will also make the State Housing area through Glen Innes and Panmure much less of a ghetto. Rail electrification will also add to the makeover of these poorer areas, by making the trains faster, quieter and less polluting. And a North Shore railway would, of course, be designed to run all the way down to Manukau without the need to transfer. When all these factors are considered, it seems that Auckland has to press ahead with its rail initiatives, or else risk the entrenchment of a regime of de facto segregation and social exclusion.

Other rapid transit links also highly desirable

Whether or not North Shore rail is built, extension of the Northern Busway around the Waitemata Harbour would link the North Shore and the CBD, Massey and Te Atatu, Westgate and Unitec.

Both the new Upper Harbour Motorway and the widening of State Highway 16 include, or will include, space for bus lanes. All that is really needed to turn the Busway into a Waitemata Loop is bus stations, and there are plenty of places where those could be added. And added quickly for that matter, whereas North Shore Rail is more of a long-term proposition. Last but not least, anything that is done to link Pakuranga and Howick to the central area, whether by bus or by train, needs to be continued so that it also links Pakuranga/Howick to Manukau via Botany, Flat Bush and Highbrook.

The elephant in the room?

To sum up, this growing apartness is the elephant in the room that no-one seems to be talking about. We seriously need to make a conscious decision to invest in social inclusion, rather than simply reinforcing current trends. The proposed roading spend-up is not just a recipe for environmental disaster, or even a waste of money. It’s also a recipe for social disaster.

From the point of view of those who might wish to pull up the drawbridge on “traffic and criminals” from the South (and West), that might not be a bad thing. But it is something an ex-South Auckland mayor might have to one day lie down in front of a bulldozer to oppose.

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11 comments

  1. Chris – you are not the only one to recognise the potential north/south divide and de facto apartheid future for the Auckland Region if NACT fully implement their version of Auckland’s Spatial Plan. However, well done for raising this issue publically. Your comments in the article above are shrewd and insightful.

    And yes – that is why it is necessary to put (relatively) short term economics aside to implement rail over to the Shore as the means to truly link the Auckland Region. Your ideas on the implementation of rail over the Auckland Harbour Bridge are also interesting. You might like to consider the fundamental steel nature of the existing Auckland Harbour Bridge. Unlike the cruddy el cheapo re-inforced concrete structures that NZTA likes to promote, steel has amazing adaptability to new uses. The demise of steel as a primary method of construction for large scale projects in NZ can be traced at least in part back to the boiler-makers strike during the construction of the BNZ building in Wellington during the 1970s.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Insurance_Building

  2. ……..and after some consideration, this condition of having PT, especially rail serve the lower socio-economic regions of Auckland, while new motorways serve new sub-divisions in the “flasher” East and Northern regions of Auckland is not a new phenomenon.

    The government view of where Auckland’s growth should occur mostly north of the Harbour Bridge certainly has the potential to accentuate a division due to the very physical divide of the Waitemata Harbour itself. However I believe that the bigger divide will continue to occur where the isthmus narrows up at Penrose and Otahuhu. To prevent that rich/poor divide from creeping up, the Auckland Council will no doubt be working very hard to optimise amenity in the Auckland ishtmus itself.

    In the big picture of course, good quality comprehensive rapid transit really is the glue that links the region together and a great social equaliser.

  3. Great post, and good insights, particularly in pointing out the idea of public transport as a way of increasing inclusion across the city. It would be an interesting idea to apply your thoughts to cities like New York and London.

  4. Great post Chris, and shows the vital need for the rail line to continue on from its new Manukau City station to bridge the SH1 imposed East West divide in South Auckland. By linking to the proposed Busway at Botany then going on to Pakuranga [at Highland Park] and the next vital water crossing of the Tamaki to Glen Innes. This line is a real shape changer for Auckland. Providing real new links and directions. Dragging not only the old east into close proximty to the centre but also down to a potentially prosperous Manukau City, and airport.

  5. As an ex budgeter the damage done to people because of regressive or non-existent action to provide country-wide public transport is an indictment on the selfish greed of any government which ignores a huge percentage of its citizens’ concerns. Not everyone can drive or wants to.

    The only possible reason for this and every other public transport-hating government is the proft motive. There must be powerful political lobby groups pushing this regressive behaviour by National/Act at the expense of New Zealanders. There is also the rocketing costs of driving that feed money into government coffers.

  6. Transport is unequally provided for sure. I would also love to see some hard data on the availability of open space in the different parts of Auckland. I am sure that if you excluded golf courses then you would find the amount of open space (per capita) is much higher in the North and central parts of Auckland than the South and West.

    Even if it is not true about the absolute quantity of open space it must surely be true about the quality…you just don’t see the kind of well developed, nicely laid out parks with lots of facilities in South and West Auckland that are quite common in the isthmus (e.g., Grey Lynn, the Domain, One Tree Hill etc).

  7. Certain suburbs, often those with the least need, do get more attention than others. I don’t think you can include East Auckland in this, at all. They’re a neglected wasteland. Central Auckland, and some parts of the North have had great investment in the last decade.

  8. I think you are being a bit selective here in order to reach your conclusion. Look for example at the the western ring route that connects manukau, west Auckland, and the north shore. With regard to the motorway chokepoints, well should we really be trying to give equal access to the CBD to people at greater distances from the CBD? Isn’t this sprawl encouraging?

  9. Thanks for all supportive comments. @Swan, the Upper Harbour Highway is the exception that proves the rule. I should emphasise that this isn’t some kind of conspiracy theory; it’s really about the tendency of short term thinking to reinforce “like with like,” not just in the sense of more roads–more cars–more roads–more cars, but also in the sense of where those roads go.
    As for chokepoints and sprawl, I agree overall, but what I’m really saying is that we can’t build our way out of centrally focused roading congestion. By leaving Mt Wellington at four lanes for something like fifty-six years, the powers that be have actually acknowledged the point. In other words the REAL roading policy gives rise to two Aucklands, while PRETENDING that roads can serve Auckland as a whole. As Tim Shadbolt once said of the war in Vietnam, the whole policy’s based on a firm foundation of bullshit.
    And while I have suggested that rail is more long-term, a lot of short term, tail-chasing thinking also informed ARTA PT planning, via their house doctrine that PT was mainly for CBD commuters. Hence a Rapid Transit Network (RTN) that is CBD focused and therefore not actually a network! The CBD focus obviously makes sense up to a point, but sections of the organisation used it as an excuse never to get round to reorganising suburban bus routes so as to provide better cross town connection, and it also left the CBD rail tunnel and electrification open to the skeptics’ accusation of “why spend all that money on 13% of the job market,” an accusation that ARTA was hopeless at combating. Even now Auckland Transport and the Super City are a bit weak on the system-wide benefits of the rail tunnel as opposed to benefits for the CBD, hence some posts on that topic on this blog, which strive to remind everyone that rail and the busway not just about the CBD.

  10. @LucyJH, areas like Mt Albert have very little parkland, which is one reason why putting a motorway through Alan Wood Reserve is so controversial. Also @ George D, East Auckland (Howick/Pakuranga) is certainly neglected PT wise, but they would be even more of a neglected wasteland if they didn’t have the Pakuranga motorway already and the projected AMETI scheme, which I enumerate. That is, if they had to queue up at Mt Wellington like the good burghers of Otahuhu. Now in Otahuhu they do at least have reasonable bus and train services, which we can improve further and that’s what I’m recommending. As per the previous note, I just want to puncture this hypocrisy about how roads can deliver One Auckland Supercity, when in fact they can’t–only a whole lot of ghettos and enclaves, which collectively add up to South+West and North+Centre+East.

  11. For someone that lives South because I love the countryside and have horses (Pokeno) but also works in the CBD, your comments are a breath of Fresh air. With no realiable Rail service i have no other option to drive.

    Every morning I travel up SH1, only to stop dead at highbrook and queue pretty much to green lane. The bottle neck and Mt wellington is crazy….you would have thought that with the massive development contributions from highbrook and Slyvia Park, something would be done.

    The journey home used to be reasonable but since the SH1 to SH20 upgrade at Manukau, it is even worse, if you look at the junction (and there is plenty of time when you are queuing) there is 6 lanes (2 lanes coming in from Manuaku Centre, Two Lanes Lanes from the East and two Lanes on the newly constructed Road) these all have to get down to two lanes at takanini………i am no traffic engineer but six lanes going into 2, was always going to cause problems and it is only going to get worst when the Rons are completed as one of the key objectives is to divert traffic around auckland…..but watch out commuters you are only going to end up queueing at Manukau !!!!!

    I work in the construction industry and i KNOW that LEIGHTON/WORKS pointed out this was going to be a problem two years ago…..but surprise surprise NZTA did nothing.

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