The annual Santa Parade is coming up is just under 3 weeks on Sunday 30 November. This is the one-day a year when families and children are really welcome in our CBD.
As part of this Queen Street, Albert Street and many surrounding streets are closed, supposedly from 12pm to 4pm. The parade itself goes from 2pm to 3.30pm. Families are encouraged to head down to Aotea Square after the parade where Santa’s Party keeps the festivities going with a stage set up.
Before and after the parade people are allowed the much too rare pleasure of walking along Queen Street freely, and the volume of people attending means huge numbers of people are in the streets before and after the parade.
However rather than encouraging people to stay around the organisers, council and the police want to rush everyone off the street as soon as possible and get the roads open to traffic.
Police cars with lights and sirens crawl down Queen St, and police officers yell at everyone to get off the road with their loudspeakers. Really a very unpleasant end to what should be a happy day.
By doing this the police are actually endangering people, as huge numbers of people are forced into narrow footpaths. This shows an extremely warped sense of priorities. The entire point of this seems to be to open the street to cars as quickly as possible. Last year the area outside Aotea Square was open to traffic less than 30 minutes after the parade finished passing. This is especially bizzare as 100’s of families were heading this way to go to Santa’s Party.
An obvious thing to do would be to keep Queen St closed all afternoon, and have some sort of street festival. The Federal Street party on Friday was a huge success, although very much an adult focussed event. The afternoon of the Santa Parade would be a great day to run a family and Christmas themed street party. The traffic management costs are already largely covered by the parade, so the extra cost should be minimal.
It may be too late to do a properly organised street party this year. However there is no reason at all why the authorities should rush to open Queen Street. How about leaving it closed until 6pm or 7pm, and allow the crowds to stroll and shop. A few entertainers and characters could easily be added to give the street a bit more life.
A separate issue that comes up is in regards to transport. The Santa Parade has a long held tradition whereby parking in council buildings is free for the day. This seems perverse when the organisers are warning of traffic chaos. Why not use the revenue and make major public transport services to the event free instead?
A few extra services would probably be handy too, as Sunday timetables are still stuck in the dark ages for every public transport service apart from the Northern Express and Links. Last year the trains were actually free, although Auckland Transport did not even advertise this in advance! The only special public transport that was organised last year was the Northern Express, and this was done well as usual. However the need for people to pay one at a time while in a very long queue meant that boarding was very slow. Making the services free would make them much more efficient.
So how about it Auckland Council and Auckland Transport. By turning the parade into a street party, and providing free public transport, the Santa Parade would be cemented as the premier free day out for Auckland families.
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Very good points Luke. Council…..?
It’s a moot point. With the CRL works closing Albert street for a year or three, this year’s parade may be the last for a few years. Maybe they will stick it on Quay St or something.
Albert St won’t be closed entirely, except for very short periods. I’m sure they can manage to either keep Albert reasonably clear that day, or run it somewhere else after Queen.
Two years ago I took my family by train from Pukekohe. AT did not at the time sell return tickets, creating a huge and unecessary melee at Britomart as thousands of people tried to buy their homeward tickets at the same time. I haven’t been on a train since so don’t know if they’ve sorted this out.
Yeah the police always do that, they just like treating people like sheep and trying to control everything instead of doing their job. They did the same thing at Christmas in the Park except on foot since there were no roads in the park… Wish they would hunt down criminals instead of regular folks going about their day.
Also did the same thing during the opening of the Rugby World Cup – everyone duly ignored the sole policeman in his patrol car – completely and utterly moronic really – literally tens of thousands of pedestrians walking down Queen St, and about 5 cars, yet Mr Plod was trying to force everyone on to the footpath.
I remember being exceedingly drunk on crutches straight afte the opening and being told to get on the footpath despite the fact that there were so many other people that I wouldn’t have been able to walk without the crutches getting kicked out from underneath me!
Also remember completely sober after the final police trying to get 100,000 people onto the footpath so that 10 cars could get through at speed, even though all ten cars were fans!
Auckland Council – Please adopt all of the recommendations in this post!
The transport system would cope a lot better if people were encouraged to stay in the CBD for a few more hours and leave at their own time instead of being herded back onto the footpaths. Typical Auckland though, all for the sake of the movement of a few cars.
Too much logic in this post…I’m getting brain overload!
Even an extra hour would make a huge difference. I suspect most people go home within the hour after the parade so you would aggravate a smaller number.
I can’t agree with the parking idea though. Everybody hates to pay to park and one of the disincentives to going downtown is the price of parking. Keeping it free is a good PR move and removal of a barrier to enjoying downtown, and it makes exiting the garages much quicker.
If parking and therefore driving is to be incentivised for Santa isn’t it smart to also make PT free too to help balance the flood of traffic….?
Yea extend the shopping hours on queen street as well. So we will at least have a very vibrant city for a day.
6 or 7 pm?
Should be 6 or 7 am the next day. Or permanently.
To be fair, a lot of the people who want the roads open are using them to leave after the parade. Some kids can’t make it through a whole day.
But not Queen St; there is not a single vehicle entrance off Queen St, not one car parking building. Driving doesn’t become impossible because one street is closed. Anyway if they didn’t push the driving mode monotonally there wouldn’t be such demand…
Maybe the police need to be reminded of clause 11.1(1) of the road user legislation
“A pedestrian must, at all times when practicable, remain on the footpath if one is provided.”
It is NOT practical to force 1000’s of pedestrians onto the footpath and they have every right to remain on the roadway.
Start a petition for free PT for the Santa Parade. Free PT should be a pre-condition to free parking!
“How about leaving it closed until 6pm or 7pm, and allow the crowds to stroll and shop” – Maybe then the retailers will have to confront a scary reality. Cars don’t buy things.
Who knows some of those carless people might even seep through into High Street – scary stuff.
Best comment yet – mainly because it’s precisely what I was going to post. Even down to the scary for High St!
I was sitting on O’Connell St last week having a coffee at Mojo(?) and discussing with my Waiheke friend just how fabulous it all looked. We both looked down Vulcan Lane to High Street and marvelled at the difference. High St really looks cramped and ugly now.
“Queen Street, Albert Street and many surrounding streets are closed” is conventional traffic engineer-speak for the situation, but it is in fact completely the opposite of what actually happens.
The roads maybe closed to vehicles, but they are opened fully to pedestrians.