As the Belgian city of Ghent shows, becoming a bike-friendly city is about so much more than enabling more cycling – it’s actually about reallocating valuable public space, and making connections that improve quality of life.
In today’s guest post, former Auckland Councillor Pippa Coom reports from Ghent, where she’s just attended this year’s Velo-city, the annual world cycling summit.
Keen for more? We’ve previously covered Ghent’s lessons for Auckland in this 2020 post by Heidi O’Callahan. If you like what you’re reading on Greater Auckland, you can support our work with a one-off or recurring donation!
Ghent’s Deputy Mayor for mobility and urban planning, Filip Watteeuw, is a happy man. He is the host of Velo-city 2024, welcoming 1600 delegates to his home town in Belgium for the annual world congress that brings together “advocates, cities, researchers, policy makers, and industry leaders to shape the future of cycling and sustainable urban development”.
In a way, the conference theme – “connecting through cycling” – is misleading. As confirmed by the experience of Ghent, and the stories that emerge from many of the conference sessions, it’s not so much about bikes at all, even though they’re a key part of the picture.
On a midsummer evening, Watteeuw leads out the traditional Velo-city bike parade – an event that invites the Velo-citizens, together with thousands of locals, to enjoy a 10km ride through a cycle-friendly city centre (a major ring road is closed to vehicles by police for the duration).
Hosting Velo-city in Ghent is the triumphant culmination of over a decade of work, which has seen the introduction of a congestion plan, a low-emissions zone (LEZ), a speed management programme, and the broad roll-out of “Fietsstraaten” – the “bike streets” that complete the cycle network.
This transformation, now universally and repeatedly acclaimed, wasn’t always so positively received. When the Ghent circulation plan was first introduced in 2017, a bitter backlash was provoked by opposition to car-park removal and changes to driving routes, and Watteeuw received death threats.
However, the controversy was short-lived. Not only were the changes hailed as a success, Watteeuw and his party actually increased their vote in the 2018 elections after the plan was introduced.
As a visitor, it is difficult to imagine that Ghent would ever want to reintroduce traffic to its city centre streets. Prior to the changes, 40% of traffic was just passing through. Now, walking and cycling around the central city is safe, easy and pleasant without the noise and dominance of vehicles. There are new verges of wildflowers, and plenty of places to sit and soak in the street life. A network of efficient buses and trams complements the travel options.
The positive experience of a more welcoming atmosphere is backed up by measured impacts. Since 2017, Ghent has seen:
- 18% reduction in air pollution (with a slight increase on the ring road)
- 20% fewer cars in the city centre
- Increase in PT usage
- Increase in cycling mode share from 22% to 37%
- Car journeys reduced from 55% to 27% mode share
- 37% decrease in traffic incidents.
Editor’s note:
- The boons are also economic: a 2019 report (covered in English here) noted a 20% boom in the hotel and restaurant industry in the two years after the circulation plan was introduced.
- The circulation plan and its ongoing positive feedback loop are also key to the city of Ghent’s climate plan.
The changes are working for drivers too. There are 10% more cars on the ring road, but no traffic jams. Cars are not forbidden in the city centre, but the changes have made other options more attractive.
Car parks have decreased by 8,000 spaces. At the same time there’s been a 6,500 decrease in the number of parking permits issued (these are free for residents of the city centre, so this is a strong indicator that residents are voluntarily deciding to reduce car travel).
Solutions have been found to provide access for deliveries and priority users. A trial of a free shuttle bus to bring people into the city centre was discontinued, as it was mainly being used by tourists.
(My sources for the above: the report “Creating the cultural shift behind Ghent’s mobility revolution”, Filip’s conference presentation, and the commentary on our circulation plan technical tour – any inadvertent errors will be down to my note-taking).
The Deputy Mayor has proudly claimed “to Ghentify” as a verb; in short, effective management in reducing the role of the car in a city by reallocating space. As Chris Bruntlett of the Dutch Cycling Embassy highlighted in his address to the conference, the real debate isn’t about bikes or cycling, but “reclaiming space for quality of life” – a view shared by many speakers.
Former NYC Transport Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who visited New Zealand in March, has an impressive album of street makeovers from around the world. In her Brave New World keynote speech, she noted that “at heart, making connections is not about infrastructure. The greatest cycling infrastructure a city can provide is a well designed street.”
As the second image shows, after a brief positive reference to Wellington’s trial cycleway, New Zealand was called out as the poster child for what not to do. This was a big cringe moment for the seven Kiwis attending the conference.
The question: can we “Ghentify” Auckland?
For me, Velo-city 2024 raised the question: why, when all the foundations are in place, is Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland still finding it so hard to “Ghentify”? Why aren’t we avidly embracing an improved quality of life, when examples like Ghent show that “creating a sustainable mobility eco-system is achievable”?
I’ve attended previous Velo-city conferences, starting with Adelaide 2014, and have come away with lots of inspiration and valuable lessons. After presenting at Rio 2018 on Auckland’s progress in building a cycling network, I optimistically reported that “Auckland is on the right path to a sustainable smart city”.
Attending Velo-city 2024 in Ghent filled my cup with opportunities to network with awesome people – however, the presentations just re-confirmed for me that we have everything we need to get moving.
Auckland has already well thrashed out the “why” and the “what” – we get it – and the “how” is well embedded in our official policies and strategies. Auckland Transport’s transformation toolbox includes:
- Room to Move: Auckland’s Parking Strategy
- Vision Zero and the Safe Speeds Programme
- the Transport Emissions Reduction Pathway (TERP)
- the Roads and Streets Framework and the Transport Design Manual
- and, Auckland’s very own city centre circulation plan, Access for Everyone
- as well as the City Centre Master Plan
The funding for delivering this transformative work is a whole other topic – but it’s clear that reallocating existing road space is the cheapest, fastest, and most cost-effective option.
So how do we get there?
The many presentations and discussions at Velo-city 2024 highlighted the need for cities to pull together three main ingredients, in order to move from agreed strategies to successful delivery. The way these were covered at Velo-city might help explain Auckland’s seemingly endless predicament of getting stuck at the “how” – and show how we’ll unstick ourselves and move ahead.
1. Win the street fight
Universal to every city that has redesigned the street, is the “street fight”: the battle over every single car parking space. For all of Filip Watteeuw’s success in Ghent’s city centre, he still encounters a backlash every time a new circulation plan is set to be implemented. As he said, it takes “political will and dedication” to see that battle through.
Wayne Brown might just be the right Mayor to take on the street fight. He should be impressed with the cheap price tag and effective use of paint – after all, after two years of planning, the Ghent circulation plan was installed in one weekend for €5m.
He’s given AT direction to find “cost effective solutions to deliver the cycle network*, and he met with Janette Sadik-Khan on her visit, when they discussed “better, cheaper and faster solutions for walking and cycling” (it wouldn’t have passed him by that street change wins elections).
However, the Mayor hasn’t yet followed through with walking the talk. The minute the going gets tough, he seems ready to throw AT under the bus, instead of recalling them to the shared vision and demanding they keep delivering.
This lack of political persistence only reinforces AT’s familiar cycle of predatory delay (see for example yet another review of the parking strategy, as recently reported to the AT board). It would be great to see more tenacity and political dedication that doesn’t accept excuses or fold at the first hurdle.
2. Let people feel the difference
Continuing with the experience from Ghent, Deputy Mayor Filip spoke about the importance of people living with and truly experiencing the changes to the street, not just being shown examples from overseas. He described how, after a 2-month trial, opponents changed their view because they were able to feel the difference.
How can Aucklanders have a new experience of mobility if trials don’t happen, or pilots are ripped out prematurely? (The Arthur-Grey project in Onehunga was a particularly painful example, which might have had a happier outcome with more consolidated political leadership.)
Although Auckland Transport has squandered opportunities for trials – the low-traffic Level 4 experience, the rail replacement planning, the untapped Streets for People funding – there are examples of success when AT and Council have faced down loud opponents and seen a trial through. Project Wave is a great example; and Quay St’s interim cycleway was a key step along the way to what we see today.
3. Win hearts and minds via the process itself
This brings us to the final ingredient: the huge opportunity to win hearts and minds via the whole process, not just the outcome.
Seth Solomonow, the moderator for a session called “Beyond Bikelash Unleashing the Power of Citizen Participation”, noted that the actual process of street change is what makes a project “politically resilient” – and that we need to remind ourselves that “the process is the project”.
From his experience working with Janette Sadik-Khan in NYC, the most controversial projects became the most successful. His take: “We do better when we give the public more of a platform.”
In our own city, I’d argue that Auckland Transport has too often got stuck in a tortuous cycle of ineffectively over-consulting in a futile attempt to avoid all possible conflict and solve all possible objections in advance – and then, abruptly backing down in the face of a noisy minority when it feels too hard, in the face of broad support and at the expense of community good will.
For example, despite his promises to an all-ages audience of “unwavering support” for bike infrastructure, former CEO Shane Ellison put the Inner West projects on hold as a result of the actions of a small group of “cycleway saboteurs”. This kicked off a six-year delay and multiple rounds of reconsultation and redesign. Only now are these projects finally progressing, and in the meantime, the available budget for a quality design for the middle section has evaporated.
As Mark Ames of Strategic Cities said in his presentation, “reactions to change are an inevitable part of the process”. We can see that in Auckland, with the current vexatious litigation over Queen St improvements and the development of the Downtown Carpark.
Perhaps it’s understandable that the process of change (coupled with anxiety about construction disruption, and now growing economic stress) isn’t able to quell aggrieved landlords and small businesses. Even so, Patrick Reynolds’ beautifully written piece on the City Centre Rebuild should be compulsory reading for those clinging to the status quo – we are almost out the other side.
There are now plenty of homegrown examples of the process being “incubated in the project” that AT could learn from. Wellingtonians Claire Pascoe and Oli du Bern gave an excellent presentation at our recent 2 Walk & Cycle conference on the implementation of Paneke Pōneke: Wellington’s Bike Network Plan. (Their presentation would match anything given at Velo-city, but is unfortunately not available online.)
As I continue my travels from Ghent to other cycle-friendly cities, my lasting impression from attending Velo-city is that Auckland absolutely has the “why” and the “what” ready to go.
As for the “how”: the government’s out-of-touch GPS has just made it a lot harder to deliver the good stuff for the people of Tāmaki Makaurau. This is ironic, given the beloved and high-profile people-friendly places (think of the Viaduct, Wynyard Quarter, Lightpath, the Glen Innes to Tamaki path) that have been funded and indeed opened with great fanfare by previous National governments.
But with strong and inspiring local leadership, we can crack on and achieve what Aucklanders unanimously want and need for a better quality of life – things like accessibility, fun, happiness, freedom, prosperity, sustainability. And we can do that by finding our own sensible and equitable solutions to reallocating valuable public space to create transport connections for everyone.
In other words, we can indeed “Ghentify” Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland – and maybe even one day, people will use our city’s name as a positive, creative, inspiring verb.
A bonus album of inspo from the journey:
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I always wonder where Auckland would be right now if Len Brown kept it in his pants and continued on as Mayor for a decade. He was the only one brave enough to do anything; the other jokers are trying to win every vote by appeasing everyone and achieving nothing.
People would have gotten tired of him and his rates increases. Wayne Brown was inevitable.
I’m not sure this is correct; the rate increases have continued under both subsequent mayors. The problem is we squandered a decade by under delivering, light rail should have been built quickly and cheaply by AT in 2017. The Arden administration had the ability to drive change but didn’t. When things got politically difficult with things like the cycling over the harbor, they flung NZTA under the bus to try and appease suburban drivers.
Labour ranked its political expediency over using its absolute majority to deliver change and got thrashed at the subsequent election anyway.
Rates have gone up too much under Goff and W Brown. But on the North Shore our increases under L Brown were ridiculously high while services were reduced. Light rail was never going to be delivered cheaply, AT can’t do anything cheaply. The whole debacle was over-promised and was a solution looking for a problem.
Always amazed me how the North Shore residents tried to blame their post 2010 rates increases on the lefty mayor. Guess they didn’t want to admit to themselves that they were victims of the government they elected. It was Rodney Hide’s Supercity reforms which gave us the transition to a uniform rating system regionwide based on capital value which was always going to make the high value areas pay more.
No the Council and mayor could have reduced everyone else’s rates to match the North Shore. Except they loved spending other people’s money too much.
The Red Queen spent $100 billion with nothing to show for it. Economics 101 would tell you that this would be horribly inflationary in a small economy like ours. This is the primary reason for our current recession and why reasonable voters tossed the previous mob out of office, along with their dopey ideology.
Perhaps Labour were beaten because of it, rather than in spite of it? They achieved nothing, at the very most, with their don’t scare the horses approach.
Whereas this current mob is so unafraid of scaring the horses their loose lips have exacerbated the post Covid economic correction to turn it into a full blown recession – reckless and unnecessary. I just wish we could find a bunch of capable, sensible and get things done politicians who are able to learn from history and govern for long term outcomes rather than just the next election cycle. I guess I’m just wishful thinking.
We were always going to have the recession because the Reserve Bank reacted to lock-downs as if they were a recession. Most people figured out after the first lock-down they were not recessionary. They damaged hospitality and tourism but not much else. It turned out hospitality closing was probably good for the economy because it focused spending into more productive things.
But for some reason known only to the Reserve Bank they carried on creating money even when most people could see it was not needed.
Remarkable!
A sensible statement from miffy.
My post above was meant as a reply to Bluey on the thread above.
To MrPlod: Eventually we might get someone like the mayor of Ghent…and then others might realise that brave achievements rather than cautious centre-ground positioning will be rewarded at the ballot box in NZ too.
No, I don’t think so. I think their defeat was baked in post covid as people wanted a change and a new era. There was a lot of bitterness in Auckland as people punished Labour for the last lockdowns.
They may as well have done something with the time they had rather than try to pander to people that were never going to vote for them anyway.
As we move towards rolling back to 50kph traffic except for a short stretch outside schools, I remember reading recently that Ghent has implemented ‘school streets’. On Ghent this means the street the school is on is closed completely to vehicle traffic. Sometimes this is temporary, an hour morning and afternoon, but several of them are permanent.
Its actually interesting. Given that councils will no longer be able to set speed limits to 30, perhaps they will find closing roads completely is still within their power?
This is such a great point, Dave. Love to see councils get more creative and proactive with the tools available, if the government insists on taking away local choices.
This post is not the first to feature from “enlightened” people who think transport principals can be taken from historic, closely held cities and plonked in Auckland.
Auckland is not Ghent and nor should we be looking to make it like Ghent. The differences should be clear in terms of topography, size etc.
The changes we’ve made in Auckland have largely been for the negative and have cost massive amounts of money. In particular the central city has gone backwards and will continue to go backwards if we blindly apply European principles.
We could be like Ghent. Some tens of thousands of years of glaciation to make the place flat followed by a few thousand years of violence as army after horde sweep through the pace to encourage people to live in a compact city.
After all of this history, Ghent and other cities in this vicinity became major trading and artisan centres; the wealth they generated was ploughed back into the beautiful architecture that is enjoyed today. The cities became residential centres with people living in close proximity BECAUSE THE AUTOMOBILE HADN’T BEEN INVENTED YET.
Auckland has never had such an injection of wealth. Its growth has largely occurred after the Model T Ford and because of it; the people chose to live outside of the city.
A number of salient points:
The Belgian/Dutch cities like Ghent are FLAT
They have been developed over centuries in a very different way to Auckland
The attraction to cycling or walking around such a beautiful, safe environment is diametrically different to Auckland city
Transforming Auckland into a Ghent like city would be akin to making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, unless we had a spare trillion dollars to spend.
As a country we need to firstly identify how, when and where we could develop the type of wealth that Ghent used to develop its architecture/infrastructure so long ago; then we may be able to develop our own liveable centres in places that are part of a long term strategy.
Arguments around the fact that Auckland was built around cars and depends on them to function just make me think it’s more urgent to find solution against that ridiculous unsustainable and fragile model.
Many European cities have also ballooned out far reaching suburbs miles away from their historic centres based on car ownership after WW2. So you can equally argue that they have grown the same way and became as car dependant as Auckland. So the response is either to complain it’s hard and we can’t do anything, or actually get ambitious and do something, like places like Ghent from whom we can learn. They are literally sharing their IP on how to do it for free!
Exactly! The last thing we need is streets with steep gradients such as queen st being shared spaces between bikes and pedestrians. we need bold changes sure, but designed for our own unique situation not trying to emulate completely different cities
Queen st already has separate bike and scooter or fast running lanes all way down from Aotea sqr. Just need steeper bit done the same. Go take a look.
I can’t figure this out. Ghent seems to have a much lower population density than Auckland, says Wikipedia. And Google Maps shows that it’s low rise, with quite a lot of detached houses in low-density suburbs. It’s not, therefore, a more compact city, is it? It seems that a lot of construction has happened either in spite of the rampaging hordes, or perhaps since the rampaging stopped. Somehow it also manages five railway termini and four light rail lines. If we overlooked the fact that Auckland was once also less private vehicle dependent (before we worked really hard over decades to make that happen) and that there are countless examples of non-flat places that have functional public transport and cycling and are therefore far less dependent on private vehicles, we could probably make ourselves think we’re different and it couldn’t or shouldn’t happen here.
Yes, it’s just the decisions we make that make the difference. Christchurch & Hamilton are flat but don’t have cycling like the Netherlands or Ghent.
” …cycling or walking around such a beautiful, safe environment ..” well we could sure make an effort to get it more that way, especially easier on the safe aspect.
I don’t know about everybody else, but I am here for TRM’s battle against change. Claiming things are black when they are white. Constant negativity.
Weirdly, it makes me positive about everything, knowing I’m not like that, lol.
We’ve tried 50yrs of applying American principles of sprawl and motorcar dominance and that hasn’t worked either, so what are YOU suggesting to make our city more livable. Being a grouch on a couch is easy, instead come to the party with some ideas. Take option4 above and get involved in the process and see if that changes your heart or mind.
lol Ghent,, of all places –
Was horrible memories for me tbh.
Would not work in Auckland- sorry.. All we need is this for Gods SAKE:
Allow Bikes on 80% of Buses
Turn on the Annoycments on all PT and play nice calm music and fire the Secuirty no bodies
Get rid of Pension free trips and cancle a lot of business
Build Bike Bridges across all water impasses , rivers and creeks and other inlets
Build many Bike underpasses around most intersections
DONE
I don’t see how bikes on buses works. There is not the room inside and you can wait to load/offload on racks. Just go with more bike lanes; on the major thoroughfares but also utilising parks etc.
Agree on bike (and walking) bridges across inlets, as well as making clearings in other places, to open up suburbs and links to cycleways and stations. Places like Beach Haven over to the Upper Harbour Highway, South-West of Te Atatu Peninsular directly onto the NW cycleway, out east linking Highbrook park to the isthmus/Otahuhu via Seaside Park. A few of these, each year and in 5 years…..
And where is that bike ferry everyone said was the best, cost-effective approach to getting cycling across the harbour?
Bike racks on buses operate on every other major urban area in New Zealand – why is Auckland so different that it can’t have them? Claims about the delays while loading or unloading are a bit spurious when you can do it while other people are still boarding and leaving – at worst, I don’t think 10 extra seconds is going to ruin their timetable…
One place we need bikes on buses is rail bus replacements.
Great post Pippa. Yes, we could do things so much better and “Win hearts and minds via the process itself”.
In response to the comments along the lines – Auckland isn’t Ghent, doesn’t want to be Ghent or shouldn’t even try to be Ghent ( which will sound very familiar to Janette Sadik-Khan. Her critics loved to say over and over again: “New York isn’t Amsterdam.”)
Please have a read of the post. The question I ask is: why does Auckland find it so hard to reallocate precious public space? Why do we get so stuck when Auckland has already thrashed out the “why” and the “what” and the “how” is well embedded in our official policies and strategies. The aim is to become a better version of Auckland with improved quality of life. In the process we may end up with our own version of the verb “to Ghentify” which would be a nice side effect but isn’t the goal. Attending Velo-city 2024 just re-confirmed for me that we have everything we need to get on with it if we can just unstick the “how”.
All comments welcome but I’d especially love to hear thoughts on this question and in response to the three vital ingredients I’ve outlined.
A real Stuff comments section in the comments today, feel dumber having read most of it.
How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Auckland
I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
Come on, folks. Less grumbling, more what can we do.
Could we Ghentify Auckland? Short answer. No.
“Auckland Trains” I presume you support train networks. Trains have dedicated transport corridors with connections for traveling from A – B (about to be greatly improved by the CRL). Why would you not want the same for active modes if this results in improved quality of life for all Aucklanders? The question isn’t “could we Ghentify” – of course we can; the question is how do we move from agreed strategies to delivery.
Yep. Also, train stations and the surrounding area can be made great with the same principles used in Ghent and LTN’s used all over NL. Cheap way to get 9x greater catchment areas too, because cycling would be made safer to the train stations. Cheap way to get more commerce in the area too.
Also, a bit of a tangent, I’m really weirded out by these ‘you need to be rich’ comments. I think Greater Auckland needs to do an article on the Dutch principle of ‘review, and do everything at once when a street needs major works to avoid excessive digging up’, and another article called ‘Why do people think bollards are expensive?’
Relating the two together, PT stations and surrounding areas will continue to get better in places that care as they continue to cycle through there street maintenance Master Plan. More they cycle through it, the worse Auckland will look in comparison. Like, I don’t understand why people don’t get the implication of this? Surely, Auckland Trains, is aware of concepts like upgrading to new trains as current ones get older?
This article omits to compare the climate, population density and terrain, between Ghent and Auckland.
Thanks but not relevant. The ingredients needed to re-allocate road space in any city don’t depend on the weather etc
Nice one Pippa.
The comments on GA are getting more ‘diverse’ since last time I looked.
Cycling is definitely the future for all cities – I just hope I’m still around to see everybody in Auckland get the chance to participate without stress or risk.
We’ve visited a few French cities recently and I was surprised how bike-friendly they were. Admittedly some of the separation was only being done with paint, but the combination of extensive bike networks, slow traffic speeds and almost universally well-behaved car drivers made it pretty blissful. Bikes are allowed to go down one-way streets in the other direction and that seemed to work fine too.