When a survey conducted by a car lobby group of its members finds strong support for closing a road to cars you’re generally extremely sceptical and looking for some sort of secret agenda, or you realise that the idea has gone so mainstream and is now so popular it’s a complete no brainer. The NZ Herald today notes that the AA has found strong support for pedestrianising Queen Street in a survey of its member – and I’m pretty confident there’s no secret agenda here:
Most motorists want Auckland’s Queen Street turned into a mall, as long as they have somewhere to park nearby.
Fifty-five per cent of respondents to an AA survey say they support turning the golden mile into a pedestrian mall.
During the rugby world cup Queen Street ended up closed a couple of times: before and after the final and then also when the victory parade was taking place. People got a nice taste of what it’s like to enjoy Auckland’s main street without it being eaten up by cars all the time. Furthermore, with Quay Street closed every weekend during the tournament the awesomeness of having Auckland’s city centre generally less dominated by vehicles was widely appreciated.
On other matters though, it seems that we still have a way to go in encouraging more sustainable transport policies:
However, 69 per cent are against a suggestion in the council’s draft 30-year plan that the 50,000 parking spaces in the city centre be reduced.
AA spokesman Simon Lambourne says the council should recognise motorists want to drive to central Auckland and park at convenient distances.
He says if there are parking buildings, people will be more than happy to walk around a pedestrian friendly CBD.
The provision of parking is a challenging issue. On the one hand we do want to make it easy for people to access the CBD for work and perhaps more particularly for shopping and visiting – and although Auckland’s public transport system is improving we’re still quite a way from it being of a quality that people feel completely confident about doing away with the hassle of driving. Particularly during off-peak times, catching the bus into town can take enormously longer than driving.
But on the other hand, we still have silly situations like Auckland Transport undermining its public transport system by offering parking in the city centre at below market rates. We still have many employers providing their employees with “free” (to the employee, certainly not to the company) parking spaces but not free public transport passes. And we are still wasting some of our prime waterfront sites on parking buildings.
However, sorting out our parking policies can be put to one side for a bit. The really good news is how widespread public support is for pedestrianising Queen Street. This is the process I would go down to make it happen:
- Over this summer have a number of weekends when parts of Queen Street are closed to traffic. Especially focus on weekends where you know town will be busy because events are on or because a number of cruise ships are in port. Stage a few events on the street to attract people in. I believe something like this is planned for around February 19th, I hope this isn’t a once-off though. Perhaps close it on some Fridays as well – like Quay Street was closed from midday Friday during the world cup.
- After the series of Friday/weekend closures this summer, run a bit of an assessment. What were pedestrian numbers like on the days when the street was closed versus when it was open? What impact was there on the roading network and public transport? What did the retailers think of the idea? Perhaps play around a bit with the different areas you close to trial things out – maybe sometimes close Quay Street too.
- During winter next year crunch the numbers, work out what went well and what didn’t. Analyse which form of closing Queen Street worked best and fine tune things around the rest of the roading network if changes are necessary. Then make a decision about whether, for the 2012/2013 summer, the street (or part of it) should be closed every single weekend.
- If things work well over the 2012/2013 summer, perhaps consider not reopening the street to cars on any weekend, and start thinking about whether it should be closed during the week too.
By having a ‘step by step’ process we can ensure that pedestrianisation is successful before we spend a lot of money on it and we can slowly talk retailers (who have historically been the biggest opponents of the idea) around into realising that they will benefit hugely from the increased foot traffic. If something doesn’t work then we can make changes to fix it, tweak the bit of road that’s closed, the hours of closure, whether we want public transport to have access in some places, whether a shared space solution might work best and so forth.
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Or close it for the fireworks on December 31st 2011, and never open it to traffic again.
Problem solved. Auckland’s improved.
And rip up the road and pave it to make it obviously a pedestrian real,.
Handlebars Matt, the cost of ripping it all up and paving it would ensure it’d never happen. That’ll have to happen gradually.
On the public transport pass issue, providing them to employees attracts FBT whereas providing a carpark doesn’t. Before there’ll be any real movement on the issue of getting employers to not provide parking that tax situation needs to be reversed. An “easy” solution would be to provide the Commissioner the authority to Gazette an area as “well-served by public transport” and thus the FBT situation for parking vs transport passes would be switched. The matter of visitor parking could be handled by providing an allowance of one parking space per x-dozen metres of floor area, or one per occupying business in a multi-tenanted premises that would otherwise have too little floor space to allow visitor parks for all tenant companies.
Right now, though, it’s hard to fault businesses for not giving employees public transport passes, given the tax implications. A fairer solution, and one that I’ve encountered personally, is a flat cash allowance that can be spent on getting a parking space, paying for public transport, or just kept as a nice bonus. In that company the only people who got parking spaces provided were the members of the ‘C’ suite, and I think most companies will choose to wear any FBT cost of parking spaces for top executives.
The cost of paving it and doing it up nice would be worth every cent since the bottom end of Queen St to Britomart and the ferry terminal is the most prominent bit of Auckland. Get the cars out now, and make plans to make the area stunning into the future.
The Australian cities did this in the 70s and 80s. Even the little ones, like Devonport, Tasmania. And the Australian ones have banned smoking or are banning smoking in theirs. A busy, smoke free, car free Queen St would be a huge asset for the city.
Smoke free Queen st? You’re kidding right?
Would be very very nice. I think the population will be ready for it within a decade.
Absolutely not.
Non-Smokers are increasingly telling smokers to f**k off. We should also do so from Queen St and everywhere else in public.
Inflicting smoke is a really nasty thing to do to someone, and to me it is a physical assault.
A physical assault?
You live in a strange alternate universe
Nope. I don’t like to be assaulted. Smoke is a physical assault. It is unwanted. It has a physiological effect. Why should I be subjected to something harmful and unpleasant against my will? It absolutely is a physical assault.
And I think an eye for an eye – and that’s why I think it is perfectly okay to punch a smoker or hit them with a rolled up newspaper. If I was on a jury I wouldn’t convict anyone for assaulting a smoker. It is always 100% justified.
Smokers arrogantly walk around never considering others, because they don’t understand the absolute hate and revulsion that others hold them in.
Ummm.. I think we’re rather off-topic here.
I don’t really agree with eye for an eye tactics… but I do agree that second hand smoke could be a form of physical assault. It’s a toxic, carcenogenic (and unpleasant) gaseous compound, a poison basically. Poisoning somebody’s food or water could be a physical assault, and so to poisoning the air that they breathe.
Physically injurious it is, undoubtedly. Whether it is assault is debatable, that really comes down to intent. However I think you could argue that if people know that it is toxic but don’t care that they inflict that toxin upon others then that probably counts as assault.
The cost of paving it and doing it up nice would be worth every cent since the bottom end of Queen St to Britomart and the ferry terminal is the most prominent bit of Auckland. Get the cars out now, and make plans to make the area stunning into the future.
Before the paving begins put in the tram tracks so that the tram network can continue past Britomart. For us older tourists/ visitors it would be great to catch the tram up Queen St. and then walk back down. Yes I know that I can catch a bus but it’s just not the same.
I recon time it in with the dominion road upgrade. Modern trams running from the waterfront, up queen street and along dominion road.
As I posted here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2011/08/30/guest-post-why-are-there-cars-on-queen-st/
The first step should be not to pedestrianise but rather to de-car Queen St. The difference is important, ped malls are not often successful, and Q St without cars would become a really useful PT corridor, unlike as it is now. And until we can put in the tram infrastructure we should just run the street as a long shared space for pedestrians, cyclists, and buses. Delivery vehicles in restricted hours. The main cross streets would still have cars so it would be still intermittently dominated by vehicles.
People would still need to to be aware of buses in the way people are of trams on Melbourne’s Bourke St. It seems to me the more important part of the plan is how we order the space not whether the PT is Buses or Trams. Of course I would much rather the fume belching buses were replaced by electric trams, especially in this valley. But as the CRL is by far a more important use of PT infrastructure investment, and it is enough of a battle to get that happening I don’t see why we should wait until we have trams before getting the cars out.
So a shared space not a mall. And no need to to do any paving changes immediately. Just so much cheaper interventions like traffic light changes and a few boldards and signs.
I agree Patrick. This would be quite cheap and would be very easy to achieve in a short space of time. I would like to see some form of narrowing of the street or temporary planters etc so that traffic (buses etc) is reduced to one lane each way except at stops.
Patrick- the current Tram lines being pushed (Dominion Rd, Mission Bay, K-Rd Pons loop) are each about 1-2% of the price of the CRL.
We can push for both at the same time without derailing either…
Geoff I think you’re dreaming if you believe light-rail could be implemented for the paltry sums you’re thinking about. I reckon a light-rail line down Dominion Road would be in the hundreds of millions, if you include rolling stock. Same for a full Ponsonby/Queen Street loop.
Hmmm. I’ve been quoted $4,250/m for double tracking. That’s $M4.25/km.
Add poles, wires, power supplies, sheds and rolling stock and I still don’t see how it could possibly be in the hundreds of millions?
That seems on the light side. How much was the Wynyard tramway – quite a bit more I thought, and that was only for a single track.
I am all for making it pedestrian
One thing i have to say all the shared spaces are fantastic and really worth while.
Always took the city circut to uni was a bit put off in the beginning but i really enjoy the walk now a days will even be better if the queen street is pedestrian
only One thing i just started to notice the innerlink and route 020 and 030 they all are off queen street and i can see the stress now on albert street.
Everyday in the morning(coming into town- i transfer at britomart) on he bus it takes atleast 10min to cross just the lower albert street lights so i just walk from ANZ centre
But feel so amazed of how much of a chaos is the whole britomart area leading to queen street- evening its even worse- passengers getting to trains buses going to howick and the 274 its just a mess
How can officials be so blinded by all whats happening
“How can officials be so blinded by all whats happening”
Because they obviously don’t take the bus/train/ferry to get to work. I think it should be in Auckland Transport employment contracts using PT to be compulsory.
The Albert Street chaos and bus gridlock was entirely predictable after making Queen St bus-free (so Queen St could become a proper 4 lane highway without those pesky buses getting in the way of the hoons on Friday nights?). Why N Shore buses are allowed to have their end stop (and stationary for endless times) at the intersection of Wellesley and Albert while dozens of W Auckland buses have to navigate around them into general traffic lanes is proof that PT planners in Auckland got their degrees from a theological college in the USA.
AT are based in Henderson now in the old WCC buildings so probably don’t see the issues in the CBD so much. I would also note that there are far more cars parked out in Henderson now than in the WCC day.
Actually I think a lot of them are based in the CBD. Just saw a job ad for Public Transport Operations Principal Planner at AT and it says CBD office location.
And a big chunk of them were just moved to Smales Farm, on the shore. Including the whole Community Transport team. Sigh.
good point hans
more to it
the free city circuit stops(to wynyard qtr) in between the nex and gowest in bitomart
makes sense to add 020 and 030 to the gowest departure stops ,
but you were spot on will have to come down at 430pm to see the mess
have never seen anyone from AT traveling on bus or train or even on the stops (may be they are on plain clothes – mystery shoppers)
I reported an AT car, with 1 person in it, using the T2 lane on Te Atatu on-ramp. No response from council. Not that I’m suprised.
Bryce, you missed the cat sitting on the passenger seat.
Temporary closures are actually expensive. Upwards of $25,000 a day. So it can’t be done often because those figures add up quickly. So even removing cars from Queen St is no simple venture. And not to mention all the irate/irrational shop owners that councillors cave in to.
So Queen Street will be closed for cars on 19 February, which is fantastic. I did however see a flyer in the train this morning stating that there will be a full rail closure that weekend.
They are creating this massive fanfare for the day, but we cannot get into town, other than my car (I do not consider taking a bus from Botany as an alternative to taking the train)
Brilliant! What timing.