Here are some of the stories that caught our eye this week about transport, housing, and all the things that make cities tick. This week’s gorgeous header image of Karangahape Road in morning fog is by Timothée Duhamel (via Twitter, shared with permission).
A note to readers: this roundup – like all our posts – is brought to you by a largely volunteer crew. If you’d like to support our work, you can donate here. You’re also welcome to pitch a guest post, or drop us a line with other ideas for helping out. We appreciate your support!
The week in Greater Auckland
- On Monday, Connor articulated an inspiring dream of roads for rail and streets for people
- On Tuesday, Patrick found some curious details in the proposed redrawing of Council ward boundaries
- On Wednesday, Matt did the numbers on reducing road deaths, and asked (again) why this coalition government seems determined to wind back the clock
- And Thursday‘s guest post from Charlotte looked at three lessons Auckland could take from Transport for London
Time to bring Auckland Transport back in-house?
The Mayor is once again making noises about bringing Auckland Transport back under the control of Council (along with other CCOs, Eke Panuku and Tatāki / Auckland Unlimited). As reported by the NZ Herald:
Today, Brown said in the case of AT the term “CCO” is a misnomer, saying Aucklanders blame the mayor and councillors when AT doesn’t listen, adding that under the law AT is an independent body with a general power of competence, the same as a council.
“The layers of bureaucracy and management within AT are totally impenetrable to elected politicians. We ask for information and don’t get it. We tell AT through the letter of expectations what they should do, and they often don’t do it. They have made some progress on a few things, but there is no sense of urgency,” the mayor said.
“The only real power we have is to change the board. But we’ve tried that. It’s not effective because the culture of independence is so deeply embedded. That’s not a reflection on individuals. The problem is a badly designed system and a legal framework that is not fit for purpose.
“I firmly believe that the only way to fix transport in Auckland is to dethrone AT by stripping it of all policymaking and strategy functions. AT should just be a delivery agent with the people’s elected representatives in full control.”
We can see some real advantages to this. For example, it may well be the only way we see any real action towards decarbonising our transport system, as laid out by Council’s own strategy, the Transport Emissions Reduction Pathway. Since around 2017, AT has not been great at strategy and planning – and all the good stuff, like the TERP, Access for Everyone, the City Centre Master Plan, and more, has come from council itself.
There are also risks, of course. Chiefly: that putting control in the hands of councillors – who run for election every three years – could lead to politicising and delaying transport decisions that should be evidence-based and delivered in a timely fashion.
On the third hand, could that be any worse than some of AT’s recent efforts – like, say, the thumbs-on-the-scales exercise that was the RLTP prioritisation process? Or the dismantling of the highly effective cycling programme just as it was hitting its straps? Or the tiresome delaying of long-planned projects on the brink of delivery? Or the preemptive watering down of safety designs for political reasons?
On balance, looking at the relative positions taken by Council and AT in the last decade, bringing control in-house should lead to better decision-making, more effective strategy, and faster delivery. But let’s see.
Interested in your thoughts: tell us what you think in the comments.
Bus lane of the week
Exhibit A: the WX1 Western Express, which launched last November, finally has a dedicated bus lane at the Westgate on-ramp. This only took a couple of days to install – but why did it take so long to happen? (Photos by Matt Lowrie, taken yesterday from the bike over-bridge.)
Project Watch: cycling infrastructure in South Auckland
Over at Bike Auckland, there’s a fresh edition of Project Watch – this time, Southside! A striking theme is just how many great projects have had their funding snatched away at the last minute by Minister of Transport Simeon Brown.
The good news is that, in many cases, AT and Council are working on ways to bridge the funding gap and keep building out the network that people in South Auckland want and need. Hooray for local leadership!
Meanwhile in Chch: Streets for People continues to attract people to streets
In Ōtautahi, the Meet Me On Gloucester project (made possible by the pioneering Streets for People programme) has reached a review milestone, with Council deciding soon whether to make the transformation permanent.
The project aims to calm traffic and create a more welcoming pedestrian environment on the block of Gloucester Street that connects a whole bunch of walkable attractions. It’s a key desire line between the Square, the Convention Centre, Tūranga (the stunning public library), the Isaac Theatre Royal, the new Court Theatre, and the picture-perfect tourist magnet New Regent St (with its adorable tram).
As Tina Law reports in the Press:
Several temporary changes were made in December to a 240m stretch of Gloucester St, between Manchester and Colombo streets, in a bid to make the road more welcoming to diners, theatre-goers and other visitors.
The speed limit was reduced to 10kph, planter boxes were placed in the middle of the road, seating was installed, a small stage was erected on the road, and large chunks of the road surface were painted.
The comments on the Press story are uniformly positive, although the headline has a bob each way:
On the one hand, it’s making at least one wealthy driver nervous:
Property investor and developer Philip Carter […] said people now walked on the road without looking and had a complete lack of regard for traffic .
“It’s scary to be a driver on Gloucester St.”
And on the other hand, it’s making the city better for people:
Simon Kingham, a transport expert and professor at the University of Canterbury, said the layout was great and the city needed more streets like it.
“Streets shouldn’t just be for transport, and usually prioritised cars. They can, and should be, for activities, recreation, shows etc.”
Other submitters in support of the trial said people had to get used to the fact streets were shared spaces and were not just for vehicles and drivers.
Another said he travelled into town to visit the central library, Tūranga, with his 2-year-old and the traffic calming measures made it safer and more pleasant to walk around.
Reckons are reckons, and vibes are vibes – but if it’s data you’re after, there sure is data:
Results of consultation, carried out between December and mid-February, have been made public for the first time and show 57% of the 255 groups and individuals that took part feel safer using the street now.
Some 46% wanted the layout to remain in place, while 22% wanted the council to get rid of it. Another 30% wanted some changes to be made. About 60% wanted the 10kph limit to stay.
A council staff report said most people drove about 20kph on the street and before the changes that figure was 32kph. Average daily traffic has dropped by 30% to about 1550 vehicles a day. However, traffic on neighbouring Armagh St has increased by 40%.
Spending data in the area around Gloucester St was monitored during the trial. It had increased 12.5% from $20.6m between November 2022 and June 2023, to $23.2m in the same period in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, given the general success of the measurable impacts, Council staff recommend that the changes stay on in more permanent form. Next Monday, a hearings panel (councillors Mark Peters and Sara Templeton, and Waipapa Papanui-Innes-Central Community Board chair Emma Norrish) will consider submissions, and will then make a recommendation to their council colleagues, who will vote on the future of this great little project.
The week in cones
The rhetoric of a “war on cones” makes for an unwinnable contest, reports Fox Meyer for Newsroom:
Traffic management leader Dave Tilton says everyone wants to tackle the cone problem, but framing it as a ‘war’ implies someone will have to lose. And in an industry concerned with people’s lives, a zero-sum game is not the best option.
Tilton says the industry, the public and the Government are all on the same page, calling for a cull on road cones, but he maintains the only way to solve the problem will be to keep the public onside as policy is developed to change our national practices around traffic management.
Such an effort is underway with the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group, of which Tilton is chair, but he tells Newsroom the group’s efforts risk being eroded by rhetoric that frames the issue as a ‘war’ to be fought against an enemy rather than a problem to be approached by a community.
Ministerial scorecards
Is this the standard of political journalism we deserve, asks Josh Drummond, prompted by the NZ Herald’s score cards for ministers:
For raising rates, increasing racial tension, and bearing ultimate responsibility for a bunch of preventable deaths, Audrey Young gives Simeon Brown a 9 out of 10. Because he’s “populist” and “highly combative” and an “effective communicator.”
She’s awarding him points for being great at being terrible.
NZTA has an app now
So, NZTA has an app now, which you can use to do NZTA things.
“The NZTA app is a secure digital ‘one stop shop’ for drivers to access their licence and vehicle information, as well as making on-line payments,” says Liz Maguire, Chief Digital Officer at NZTA.
“Future updates will allow users to easily pay tolls and view their vehicles’ safety ratings, as well as pave the way for a Digital Driver Licence in New Zealand.
Curious to try the NZTA app? NZTA advises you to “search for ‘NZTA Waka Kotahi’ in the relevant app store.”
Photo of the week: la vie en rose (or should that be la voie en rose?)
Complementing our gorgeous header image, this particularly Parisian pink path caught our eye, in a tweet from @Qagggy: “Pink lanes guide riders to Olympic events. Paris is setting the standard for low-carbon event transport.”
By the way, Tim Walz fixed your bicycle
We love a good transport and urbanism tie-in with current events. Did you know the presumptive Vice-Presidential nominee Governor Tim Walz gave Minnesotans a $1500 e-bike rebate? Streetsblog has a list of his achievements for transport, including “one of the most progressive transportation bills in U.S. history”:
The $9 billion law, known only as HF2887, was more or less a grab bag of progressive transportation priorities, prompting Planetizen editor James Brasuell to comment that “seldom, if ever, does a bill adopted in the United States accomplish so many policy goals sought by transit and active transportation advocates in one legislative package.”
[…]
In May of this year, Minnesota passed a companion bill to HF2887, which Ash Lovell of PeopleForBikes argued went “further than any other state-level bicycle safety policy” and placed “Minnesota at the leading edge of bicycle safety in the nation.”
Also be sure to click through (again and again) to timwalzfixedyourbicycle.com – you won’t regret it!
And lastly, a couple of all-purpose maps
From a few years ago, but timeless enough to share: the travel cartoonist Itchy Feet’s maps of every European city, and every American city. Which prompts the question: what would you put on an all-purpose map of every New Zealand city?
That’s us for this week. Ka kite, have a great weekend!
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I wrote up an idea I had for making Parnell Station a bit more useful.
My proposal is a pedestrian tunnel running from the station though the hill to St Georges Bay Road with a lift in the centre going to Parnell Rd.
See the article for more details:
https://blog.darkmere.gen.nz/2024/08/expanding-the-reach-of-parnell-station/
Stunning photography of K road. Would be awesome to see someone do a presumptive map of every NZ city.
“Tim Walz gave you a bike and charged the taxpayers for it.” Seriously do he and Harris have a hope in the angry states that decide these things?
You’re not really following the election, are you, Miffy
Miffy seems to be the resident curmudgeon on this site who enjoys playing Devil’s Advocate with all of us common sense thinking people. I hope he sticks around though – we would all miss his outrageous comments if he ever did leave the site!
Not really, but I know Trump has been ahead in swing states, but that was when he was against the Corpse of Joe Biden who those idiot Dems selected in the primaries. Now it is down to a few angry swing voters in stuffed up states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. What everyone else thinks doesn’t matter.
If only we had politicians who could say those things!
Who else is going to pay for things?
Technically speaking, governments do not earn money or have money. Doesn’t all or most of the cash governments have available to them come from taxes?
Yes but most governments have more sense than to raise taxes on everybody to buy expensive bikes for hipsters and yuppies to go to work on. Most governments figure people can buy their own bike if they want one.
I worry that even if the CCO’s are disestablished and absorbed back into the council organisation, that those who have opposed the progress that they’ve been directed to enact, will continue to resist and delay.
If the current political structure isn’t working to deliver the expected results, the question would be what are the results required and how best to structure the governance to achieve those results.
There must be some secret school to become a property investor/developer where you learn how to become an absolute fool.
Let’s flip his moronic comment – “People drive on the road/footpath without looking and have a complete disregard for pedestrians. It’s scary walking/cycling up against a 2 tonne Ford Ranger”
That shared space near Sky City seems to act more like a road. I reckon if you walked through the middle you would be honked at.
Totally, shared spaces are crap – yet to see one that is actually nice. I get the point is to slow vehicles by the general design of it but why would anyone want to share a space with a large, polluting, noisy vehicle?
The shared space on Maki Street behind the NorthWest mall is absolutely horrific. Traffic flow has increased massively for people driving through to get to the lights and yet it’s basically a space for people to move between the mall, the library, restaurants and kids are often playing on the nearby grass. Not to mention the layout is pretty crap, my mum almost got bowled over by someone driving on the footpath as she exited a shop there once.
Shared spaces don’t work where a lot of traffic is forced to go through them. Simple enough. Maki St would work if there were anywhere else for the cars to go – as it is, no. Sky City coaches and car parks create just too much tension in that bit of Federal St for comfort, but it is better than just a fast street.
Getting traffic off most traffic off Gloucester St onto Armagh St is a great result, showing the right place to do this kind of treatment. Will add hugely to New Regent Street.
And an anxiety-ridden investor/developer? Seriously?
You can just drive around to the other side easily via Tawhia. There is no reason for it to be a thoroughfare. The street parking is ridiculous when there is acres of parking next door.
Agree, and it also shows what happens when cars are allowed to dominate. When first opened drivers went through Maki at a pretty slow speed, now they put the foot down and treat those on foot to intimidation
“a 2 tonne Ford Ranger”
I would go “a 2.2 tonne Kia EV6”. Appropriate as EVs are also very quiet.
I had an idea for improving Parnell Station by making it easier to get to from other parts of Parnell.
Wrote up the idea here. It involves a pedestrian tunnel from the station to St Georges Bay Road and a lift in the middle to Parnell Road.
https://blog.darkmere.gen.nz/2024/08/expanding-the-reach-of-parnell-station/
Nice idea, sounds pricey though…
Of course, we can thank Mike Lee for the sub-optimal station location, and for what…
I really don’t know how much it would cost.
I want to say less than $10 million including the lifts. But much of it depends how easy it is to do the actual digging. It might be some engineer will come back and say $100m due to the geology and then it won’t be worth doing.
But if it can be done fairly cheaply it might be worth it to charge up a badly placed station.
Mike Lee is back on Council. Time he really sorted this out. Set him a KPI on passenger numbers?
Looks a good idea. Yes it sure is steep around there.
Of course he did, Miffy. If you hadn’t noticed that’s one of the two things politicians do; take money from tax payers and get it to other people. The other thing they do is reward trickle-up while harping on about trickle down.
“that’s one of the two things politicians do; take money from tax payers and get it to other people.”
I’m not actually sure whether anyone was being ironic here, but that’s exactly what a state should do. Money begets more power begets more money begets more power in the absence of redistribution. If the state wasn’t in the tax-and-spend business, after a generation or three, there would be three Elon Musk style billionaires making war on each other using the left-over peasants – who would be owning nothing.
And that isn’t what is happening?
Sounds not unlike the mediaeval kings and peasants type of society.
Pretty ironically to suggest putting councillors back in charge of transport and in the same breath complain about AT giving way to political pressure and weakening safety outcomes.
AT Board gives Council the opportunity to have AT governed by people who really know about transport. Mayor Brown would like to have less Councillors, so needs Boards that can respond to Council direction and govern their CCOs well. Nothing wrong with the Act, just the actions – and maybe the actors.
Having said which, what are the broken things to fix? An RLTP that works for the finance made available or one that is aspirational but not practicable? “AT’s recent efforts” listed in the post all seem to be issues of responding to government or Councillors/Board Members. Would the result have been any different under direct Transport Committee governance?
The Mayor need helpful debate on this matter – it’s not simple.
Taking strategy away from AT means putting it into Auckland Council and staffing the Council with sufficient competent transport planners to set a different strategy. How much potential is there for this? I think this is the question that needs careful discussion – relationship between Council Transport Committee, Council Planners,
Nice cone shot, Jolisa. Has anyone ever parked a bike there? Must have been a helluva skateboard crash to do that damage.
Probably two skateboards, at the very least. And yeah, not the most intuitive spot for a bike rack – and now, thanks to the rogue skateboarders, not the most appealing either!
Having attended a few AT Board (Bored) meetings, I can comprehend the Mayor’s frustration. Auckland Transport does seem to be its own council, or even ministry, and it should not have such a mandate.
A T needs to make our trains better, our roads more pedestrian and bike friendly / safe, and actively advocate for the people of this great city. This includes pushing Light Rail where it makes sense, and ensuring that all of our citizens can move where they need, with public transport and separated bike and walking paths.
Cars continue to dominate our city and despite the public rhetoric and advertising campaigns, I have witnessed very little attempts to actually control the pestilence that are private motor vehicles.
I am not a personal fan of the mayor, but he is acting as a mayor, and that is quite refreshing for the most important city in our motu.
bah humbug
AT don’t have the budget for most of that. Realistically they can’t build LR without the government funding it, and they can’t even build cycling facilities now with the new government. God they can’t even set speed limits!
AT get not enough money, no authority, and 100% of the blame.
“Time to bring Auckland Transport back in-house” – I feel like AT get whipped no matter what they do. We keep hearing from the current mayor that AT do not listen to Aucklanders, but how can they possibly listen to every opposing view? We heard from the last Mayor that AT were “Bloody arrogant” for wanting to use car parking space to instead provide actual transportation.
I wonder if council controlled transport would actually achieve even less while they try an appease everyone and no one.