Wow, we’re in November already and it’s a Friday so welcome to another round-up of interesting stories about what’s happening in Auckland and other cities. Feel free to add your links in the comments!
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The Week on Greater Auckland
- On Tuesday Matt highlighted the most interesting items from the latest Auckland Transport board meeting.
- On Wednesday Matt looked at the plans for upgrading the Henderson train station and found them wanting.
- On Thursday Matt celebrated the opening of the first section of Te Hā Noa – the Victoria St upgrade.
Bike hate is nothing new
Our government and media have been really stoking the culture war flames against bikes recently but as this Radio NZ piece highlights, it’s nothing new.
Anyone who thinks controversy around cycle lanes is anything new, should pick up a copy of Michael Toohey’s just published account of the bicycle’s beginnings in Aotearoa New Zealand, The Cycling Pioneers.
Mania for ‘velocipedism’ was decried as needing to stop in newspapers way back in 1870.
That same year came the first recorded incident of road rage in Pōneke Wellington: a man waving a horse pistol at a cyclist.
Even dating back to the ‘dandyhorse’ craze of 1819, Toohey writes, cyclists had taken to footpaths because of the state of roads and were consequently being treated as a scourge.
Kiwirail’s Bike Hate
Speaking of bike hate, this is ridiculous from Kiwirail:
A decision to shut a popular new Christchurch cycleway for expensive rail safety upgrades has outraged cyclists, who say they will now be forced onto dangerous roads with fast-moving trucks – or have to give up biking altogether.
KiwiRail told the city council it must close a 1.5km section of the Heathcote Express cycleway after a safety assessment found a nearby rail crossing posed the risk of serious injury or death once every thousand years.
Ruth and Bernie McLean have lived in Heathcote since the 1980s and use the cycleway often. Before it was installed they used to avoid cycling on weekdays because it meant they would have to take a “very unsafe” route alongside trucks going 60kph.
Just to be clear, the cycleway doesn’t cross the tracks, it just happens to be beside them but Kiwirail are demanding it close just because there’s a nearby level crossing which they want the council to upgrade.
The upgrades also come with a $6.5 million price tag for ratepayers, more than three times the initial estimate. According to a council memo, KiwiRail had attributed the additional cost to extra signalling requirements to control automatic gates on the cycleway and arm barriers on the crossing.
Transport engineer Glen Koorery told The Press the closure and safety work seemed like an over-reaction.
“It’s such a low-use crossing. You don’t need a full-on solution. I don’t quite get it,” he said.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown told The Press he thought the decision was “illogical” and asked KiwiRail to explain.
E-bike rebates are popular
From the “I totally would have guessed” files, Bloomberg reports:
Since 2022, the Colorado city has handed out close to 15,000 vouchers in a bid to cut traffic, clean the air and spark an electric cycling boom.
Two and a half years ago, the city of Denver launched what might be the most explosively popular transportation policy of the post-pandemic era.
In April 2022, the city invited residents to request a rebate if they bought an electric bike at a local shop. Any adult could apply for a voucher worth $400 off an e-bike or $900 off an e-cargo bike; those with low-incomes could get $800 more.
Denver was the first US city to create such a program, and officials weren’t sure how it would go.
“We were expecting a couple hundred applications — for the entire year,” said Mike Salisbury, who then oversaw the e-bike rebate program as a city staffer. “But in two weeks, we received ten times that number.”
Since then, Denver has distributed close to 15,000 vouchers, or roughly one for every 40 adult residents. The city has lowered the standard rebate to $300 for an e-bike or $500 for an e-cargo bike, but new batches of vouchers are still snapped up like Oasis reunion tickets. In August, some 17,000 people scrambled to snag one of 220 vouchers. They were gone in seconds.
Legalising Jaywalking
The term jaywalking and it being illegal in much of the United States has a well documented history of being created by the auto industry to make cars more attractive. New York has just become the latest city to legalise it.
Jaywalking – that time-honored practice of crossing the street outside of the crosswalk or against the traffic light – is now legal in New York City.
Legislation passed by the city council last month officially became law over the weekend after the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, declined to take action – either by signing or vetoing it – after 30 days.
…..
The new law permits pedestrians to cross a roadway at any point, including outside of a crosswalk. It also allows for crossing against traffic signals and specifically states that doing so is no longer a violation of the city’s administrative code.
But the new law also warns that pedestrians crossing outside of a crosswalk do not have the right of way and that they should yield to other traffic that has the right of way.
For more of a history of why Jaywalking became a thing
Riding our trains
The Spinoff’s Lyric Waiwiri-Smith asked “What does Auckland look like if you never get off the train?”
If I catch my train all the way to Britomart after leaving The Spinoff’s inner-west suburban office, there’s always a large queue of people waiting to get in after I’ve disembarked, so many that you have to dart through the crowd to get off the platform. The sign on the train changes to “Destination: Swanson”, and the train gets ready to chug all the way back out west where it came from, and maybe back again, and again. It always makes me think: what if you never got off the train?
So that’s what I did on Thursday, travelling on every train line in Auckland without ever leaving a station. As a 24-year-old who uses public transport for everything, and generally has a positive outlook about it, I feel really uncool. I don’t have a driver’s licence, which is definitely only inspired by climate change concerns and not at all related to my recurring nightmare of dying in a horrific car crash, why would you bring that up? Anyway, suffice to say I’m very fond of my city’s trains and buses.
Speaking of riding our trains, we’re getting closer to the City Rail Link and here’s their latest update
Balancing Housing and Nature
The Guardian reports about how a citizen’s initiative has helped protect Hamburg’s natural areas while also allowing for more development.
But even forward-thinking cities such as Hamburg have struggled to break free from the instinct to pave over plants. In 2018, conservation groups petitioned the city to preserve its green space after Olaf Scholz, the centre-left mayor who would go on to become chancellor of the country, pledged to build 10,000 flats in the pricey port each year. The demand attracted 23,000 signatures and led to a rather German solution to nature conservation: a contract.
The authorities signed an agreement with the citizen’s initiative to protect 30% of Hamburg’s land area – 10% as untouchable nature reserves and 20% with a looser conservation status – and ensure the share of public green space in the city rises over time. The city also agreed to increase the biotope value, an index it uses to measure the quality of nature.
And the plan has been successful. A progress report in July found it had risen from 2019 reference values as result of efforts to upgrade grasslands, rewet moorlands and use nature-friendly conservation measures on land owned by city companies.
The contract also contains clauses that mean construction works that hurt nature in one part of town must be compensated for elsewhere. A similar flexibility governs the 20% of the city area under light conservation rules, allowing authorities to build on green areas if they save new ones.
This is a great image from Eke Panuku highlighting the original coastline of Auckland and what it is now.
And overlaid with current. From Eke Panuku Board report 23 oct www.ekepanuku.co.nz/media/je3okb…
— Akl City Centre Residents' Group (@ccrg.bsky.social) 2024-10-29T06:09:59.190Z
AT’s Pothole Promise
Auckland Transport are jumping to the government’s pothole tune.
Auckland Transport (AT) is making a pothole promise to keep the city moving and reaffirm its commitment to fixing one of the most troublesome and talked about problems on Auckland’s roads.
The promise, which includes a new 24 hour response time, has been welcomed by Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown.
“This is an excellent initiative. I am totally behind the ‘pothole promise’ and I hope AT can deliver it.
“I encourage Aucklanders to be proactive about reporting potholes and also reporting any cases where it has taken longer to get them fixed than promised,” he says.
Auckland Transport’s Group Manager for Road Asset Maintenance and Renewals, Alan Wallace says we are committed to repairing potholes on Auckland’s road network.
“This year, so far our contractors have repaired more than 3,600 potholes across the Auckland region on behalf of AT.
“The pothole promise is to repair 95% of potholes within 24 hours of notification on our busiest roads, which is the same target the NZ Transport Agency recently committed to meet on state highways,” he says.
The 24 hour response time applies to AT’s arterial and regional road network – the main traffic routes – which comprise 1,400 km of sealed roads across the Auckland region, most of which carry more than 10,000 vehicles per day.
On all other sealed roads potholes will be repaired within five working days. It is not possible to have a 24 hour response time on all sealed roads due to the sheer size of the Auckland road network which has more than 7,000 km of sealed roads.
Have a great weekend.
That Kiwirail action is typical modern, managerially driven New Zealand sadly. I would say that can’t understand how they can conclude that an infrequently used level crossing (which isn’t even crossed by the cycleway, wtf?) poses more risk than a busy highway, but sadly having witnessed risk assessment done via group think I can imagine the conversations.
Wow Simeon sticking up for cycling: “ Transport Minister Simeon Brown told The Press he thought the decision was “illogical” and asked KiwiRail to explain.”
Or was he referring to the price tag?
I’ve seen pretty reasonable speculation that they don’t give really a shit about the cycleway – it’s just a negotiating tactic to try and extract some $$ from the council
I wonder if it is council or Kiwirail that own the land the cycleway is on? Maybe more construction or laydown space is needed, and the cycleway is a cheap option for them?
Kiwi Rail are promising the opening of the CRL in 2026.
But they say there is still much work to do.
I would bet that they won’t open in 2026. It’s very disappointing as the network is important to our economy.
They opened the eastern line early this year but there is still work to do. Work hasn’t started on the Henderson station yet, level crossings work is still to do and so much more.
We live in a versus society. Bikes v trains, cars v everything, trucks v potholes etc.
Why can we not just all get along…on a train? That carries bikes (and humans)?
bah humbug
Hello Michael Toohey looking forward to reading your book
Here are two articles I have written about bike back hate
How to suppress biking – Brief history from German
https://hamiltonurbanblog.substack.com/p/how-to-suppress-biking-brief-history-from-german
How to suppress biking – Brief history from Hamilton
https://hamiltonurbanblog.substack.com/p/how-to-suppress-biking-brief-history-from-hamilton?utm_source=publication-search