The shared space on the western end of Fort St has been particularly successful in both revitalising the public realm and encouraging adjacent businesses to invest in the area which has helped to bring it alive. We have been keeping track of the works to create a shared space on the eastern end of Fort St and it seems there are already some really positive results coming from the work. Nick was there on Friday and took these shots noting that there were two different bands playing which caused enough people to gather that cars struggled to get through.
On the same day our good friends Craig and Sydney were also there and took this photo of the scene, note there are at least four different bars with seating out that you can see in the photo
They also created this image showing just how much change there has been
It’s truly remarkable just how much change there has been turning a street that was focused on the storing and moving of cars to one that is about the people. The benefit of this to local businesses is likely to be substantially higher than that of the lost carparking, something also pointed out by reader Aaron Schiff on his blog.
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You can almost thank the indoor smoking ban for creating such huge demand for outdoor seating areas Рevery caf̩ and bar needs it these days
The more of these spaces in Auckland the better. Accelerate the conversion programme AC.
I work in the Lumley Centre, so I walk through this area around lunchtime pretty frequently. Once all the construction work was finished, the various cafes in the area started investing in decent outdoor furniture. It doesn’t feel quite as established as west Fort Street yet. Because eastern Fort Street is wider than the western shared space, it feels a bit more exposed to rain and wind. The al fresco dining took a while to build up momentum, but warmer weather has definitely increased the lunch time crowds dining on the tables. Still feels like it could go either way as far as being a successful outdoor dining area, but events like the live bands on Friday will definitely help.
Once Federal Street and O’Connell Street have been converted, I wonder if the retailers of High Street will realise how much better it would probably be as a shared space?
I heard (Ludo Campbell-Reid maybe) that High Street do want it now but have been told to go to the back of the queue as they scuppered the original proposal.
It was hilarious when Ludo was saying that he wants to tell allthe the retailers on Fort Street that shared space trial is over now and it will go back to a normal street. Just to see the look on their faces when they realise how much money they will lose. They fought so hard not to have the space because of course the cars now cant buy anything.
Cars buy stuff right?
High St could be done on the cheap very easily.
Not really – not if it was to look semi-similar to the other shared spaces.
What you COULD do is place planter boxes along one side (or both sides) to close of the car parks, and create “parklets” except for a few loading space. But that wouldn’t deal with the issue of the narrow footpaths, or that there would still be a very harshly defined road-space in the middle.
Nah, let them wait for a few years.
Yeah, but it wouldn’t cost that much to raise the storm water traps and the paving up to level of the ledge-like footpaths. Would make an enormous difference to the sense of width in the lane. Restrict deliveries to pre11am. Bingo: Shared space totally flooded by humans -> local spend will go up.
Bloody hipster bikers riding helmetless. Where do they think they are?
Ordinary people.
They are inside ordinary people?
If only we lived in a country where our leaders set an example like this.
Meh – the New Zealand Cycle Trails are a nice initiative, but a rural/tourism-focused one. And the money invested in them pales in comparison to a SINGLE motorway interchange project in Auckland (100-250 million a pop!), of which I know of about half a dozen going on in Auckland alone.
Real example-setting looks different.
I was talking about him riding without a helmet. Throwaway joke!
No helmet!!!???? Burn him, he’s a witch.
I would be a lot more impressed if he was on his bike to the office, not just a photo op, like politicians in the Netherlands and Denmark, even the UK now.
Won’t someone think of the parking! All that space and nowhere to park; I do hope Brownlee doesn’t hear of this. It could cause palpitations.
Brownlee wouldn’t care either way – there have been so many new parking garages going in in this area in the last 10 years that losing a few on street doesn’t make a dent in the thousands of new spaces that have been built. That’s the issue with Auckkand the urban fabric has been pretty much irreversibly destroyed by turning most streets into boring gated entrances to parking buildings. Shared Spaces are fine in and of themselves but the structural problems in Auckland will continue to exist so long as all the big money is only spent on increasing road capacity and pumping more cars into the city. As it is the actions of the council doing these spaces and Auckland Transport attempting to increase innercity car capacity and priority don’t mesh at all.
Brownlee cares for cars on principle. It’s a labour of love. The hipsters may have their matchstick bikes, to go with their skinny soy-latte bodies, but real red-blooded steak-and-fries males like him like cars because they are MANLY. So of course Brownlee is opposed to this European stuff.
Brownlee is twice the man I will every be. Literally.
Not based on height 😉
Wow, such an amazing difference. Such an attractive place for people to visit, rather than to simply pass through. I would think retailers would be screaming to have more of these built in the CBD.
Shout out to Sydney- that before and after is a truly wonderful piece of work. Thank-you.
Is the little girl on the scooter allowed to use this area? I mean Scooters don’t pay registration fees or road user charges, will no-one speak up and make a stand for the poor motorists who subsidise this dangerous and wrong behaviour.
This happened last week as well. At Ima only. Then I guess the bar in front realized it was a good idea and he called a band as well. Good timez fir musos too
Looks great. Loving these daily photos too
“Nick was there on Friday and took these shots noting that there were two different bands playing which caused enough people to gather that cars struggled to get through.”
You sound almost gleeful that cars had a tough time – is it meant to be a shared space, or not?
It’s shared in the sense that there’s still provision for cars to get through to access properties, but they are supposed to be giving way to pedestrians and clearly that was happening.
The point of the shared space is that it’s supposed to be a destination, not a through-route. If you want to drive your car at 50km/h, there’s Customs Street just a block over. You shouldn’t be driving along Fort Street except to access something that’s ON Fort Street, and if that’s the case, even driving at walking pace isn’t going to delay your trip by more than about 60 seconds.