Connor Sharp is running for the Waitematā Local Board in this year’s election.
On Saturday (pending any close-run races), we’ll learn who will govern our city for the next three years.
While the mayoral race feels like a foregone conclusion – to the point there’s barely even any media coverage of it – who else will be sitting around the council table, and who will sit on the various local boards, will have a big impact on the city’s future.
That impact is likely to be even more significant than previous elections, because of the proposed reforms to Auckland Transport which involve a major shift in transport governance for New Zealand’s biggest city.
How these Auckland elections will reshape the future of transport in Auckland
About a month ago, the trio of B’s (Wayne Brown, Simeon Brown, and Chris Bishop) revealed the legislation that will reform Auckland Transport and see council take over as the local Road Controlling Authority (RCA).
This means Auckland Council becomes responsible for almost everything that happens on the region’s roads, leaving Auckland Transport focused only on delivering public transport.
Council becoming the RCA means that the Mayor and Councillors we elect this month will decide not only how much money is spent on transport across our city, but also which projects get built – and, potentially, all of the minute details of those projects.
A couple of good recent examples of the kind of street-shaping projects where Council will gain even more direct influence and decision-making power are Project K (the precinct project around the Karangahape Road CRL station) and the Great North Rd improvements.
When projects like these come up in future, it’s whomever is elected on Saturday that will determine whether we see progress – or regression.
Render of Mercury Lane for Project K
A key detail included in the September announcement is that the Governing Body (i.e. the Mayor and Councillors) will be responsible for arterial roads and the city centre, while local boards will gain decision-making powers over local and collector roads in their areas.
The exact delineation of what is an arterial road (governed by the council) and what is a local road (looked after by local boards) will be decided by the new council. And wherever that split lands, it’s likely to remain largely unchanged until the next big shake-up of governance in Auckland, potentially decades away.
So this is pretty major stuff.
The Council’s control over the city centre is also likely to be critical how the city evolves into the future. Our current crop of councillors have shown they have very different visions over what the City Centre should look like, many of which belong in last century.
Depending on the make up of the incoming council, could we see plans for the city centre rewritten and watered down to be made more car-centric? Or will we see the continued transformation of the city to make the most of the opening of the City Rail Link?
Again this underscores the importance of who’ll be sitting around the council table for the next three years.
Who we elect to local boards matters as much as the Mayor and councillors
As noted, the legislation allows for delegation of some powers to local boards, with the announcement saying:
They’ll [local boards] make decisions on local and collector roads including setting speed limits, closing roads for events, managing parking and creating cycleways.
This immediately raises an important question. While the Governing Body will likely have access to a lot of expert advice from staff regarding the decisions they make, will the same be true for local boards?
Local boards’ new local powers could result significant changes in how people in different areas get to move around their neighbourhoods. Some local boards will be progressive, and will wield this new power for great outcomes – the types of community-supported transformations and upgrades that were too often ground to dust by AT’s change-adverse middle and upper management.
But residents of other local board areas could see the opposite, with hard-won walking, cycling and safety improvements ripped out, and local action plans put away to gather dust. As Matt said last year, the new powers given to local boards may mean the safety, walkability, and bike-ability of neighbourhoods becomes a bit of a ‘postcode lottery’, highly dependent on whoever is elected.
Meola Road Cycleway in February 2025
We’re also yet to see any indication that local boards will be properly resourced to do this work – and it will be a lot more work, meaning that the people communities have chosen to represent them may have a lot more on their plate than they may have bargained for.
A big unknown is how the council and local boards will work with the new public-transport-focused Auckland Transport.
Will the council – with control of arterial routes – improve bus priority infrastructure, to help the network run more smoothly… or could they roll it back?
Will local boards, with their ability to decide on things like the number and location of bus stops in their areas, help or hurt public transport? Too many bus stops too close together (which may sound appealing at the hyperlocal level) can slow down bus services and make them less reliable. Badly located bus stops could make public transport less useful.
Will the remnants of AT have to go begging and pleading to council and local boards, to make improvements or to preserve things that work? Who decides whose vision prevails?
Speed limits are just one of the things local boards will get more control over
While the AT reforms still contain a lot of unknowns (and remain a bit of a complicated mess to untangle), what is certain is that when it comes to our transport choices, whoever is elected to local boards and council seats in Auckland this year matters a lot more than in the past.
Voting closes soon!
You have until noon this Saturday the 11th October to vote by putting your ballot into one of the orange drop boxes at supermarkets, libraries, or transport hubs.
If you haven’t yet received a ballot, or are not enrolled, you can still vote by enrolling (or updating your details) online, and then going to one of the special voting locations or events.
Information on candidates can be found through a few different platforms. Auckland Council has online candidate profiles this year, and there’s also policy.nz.
I would highly recommend doing a bit more research into your local candidates: check their social media, or their voting records if they are an incumbent, as their own self-reported views don’t always align with their actions and their voting record.
Please vote if you haven’t already! And encourage your friends and family to vote as well.
Local elections are always really close, so you genuinely could make a difference as races often come down to just a few votes.
You truly do have the power to shape how our city will move around in the coming years.
So use it!
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Thanks Conner – Excellent, and luck to you for the upcoming vote count.
…”I would highly recommend doing a bit more research into your local candidates: check their social media, or their voting records if they are an incumbent, as their own self-reported views don’t always align with their actions and their voting record.”…
Hard to believe but… The obvious question is how.
1. Use the council meeting minutes, decisions include votes.
https://infocouncil.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/
Fun fact, documents are turned into .jpg meaning they are hard to search or AI
2. Use AI to research the voting record..
eg chatgpt.com (no login required) “can you please return the voting record of [your Councillor] as Auckland Councillor, and highlight controversial issues”
3. not for the elections, but the LGOIA process is very easy, quick and mandates non flippant answers. Keep your questions direct, and you will be rewarded..
https://new.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/en/about-auckland-council/privacy-official-information-requests/request-information-from-us.html
“becomes a bit of a ‘postcode lottery’” – more like democratic representation of what the local area voted for.
This has always been an issue with the super city – the right wing moaners in the rich areas stop progress in others.
Democracy is the issue:
Who is entitled to vote (not the children who will live with the consequences, not the people who will live in the new housing)?
Who will vote (able to cast a vote, engaged enough to have a say)?
Who are they to vote for (public profile, knowledge of policy positions)?
Although many mayoral and council candidates may be moderately well known and their positions and performance may be known, a lot of Local Board candidates may be virtually unknown to their electorate, so voting becomes horribly like filling in the football pools.
Their likely policy and performance in RCA governance is very hard to know in advance.
This is an important general message and when you write such my advise is to leave political bias outside. Commets such as views belonging to a different century does not belong in a respectful and objective site. Democracy is fortunately a broad church and its the people of this city that decides what views that best represent us. Same with local boards, whether they wish to rip up speed-bumps or introduce 30km/h and build pedestrian friendly roads is a reflection of the peoples will. That is the beauty of democracy. We elect representatives that we believe best will and can advance our interests and if enough people agree, then they get elected.
For my local board, this time I voted for a lady who’s general views don’t align with mine. But she has, for the last three years, made the effort to provide constant updates, on the community Facebook pages, on what goes on, where to make our voices heard and provide links to where we can give feedback when the council discuss something that affect our local ward. That to me is what I expect from any local elected candidate. To me, it means she understands what democracy entails and acts as a custodian, hence she deserves my vote.
Last time I voted for a young millennial, this person hasn’t said a word for three years and to me that’s not what I expect from my representatives, hence I vote different this time. Maybe its maturity or maybe this candidate feel that they are more responsible towards a party organisation than the people, none the less soliciting for views and asking for feedback is the least I expect from my local representative.
“Same with local boards, whether they wish to rip up speed-bumps or introduce 30km/h and build pedestrian friendly roads is a reflection of the peoples will.” – I wrote a similar thing, but its a bit more complicated than that. For example if I choose to ride a bike to work I have to leave my local board, perhaps into one that is a cars only zone.
This is where the Council’s decision on which roads stay with them as the RCA (subject to joined up thinking) and which roads go to the local boards (subject to potentially fragmented thinking) is so important.
We can only hope that decision gives consideration to all modes and doesn’t just fixate on the carterials.
No one (well maybe a small amount) is advocating to ban bikes entirely anyway they just don’t want gold plated infrastructure for bikes like the Stonefields to St Johns (along Morrin rd) bike path with I have yet to see one cyclist use btw. It’s about time democracy was at the core of every decision not just a few upset GA readers (such as myself) making such a ruckus they get listened to. Evidence should be presented to people still but if they want to ignore it that’s 100% ok. Oh and democracy already solved the 30k issue simply removing it as an option haha, this was done via majority vote though so don’t go round whinging.
“No one is advocating to ban bikes” – there is a difference between banning them and making them feasible. Would you honestly feel safe riding a bike on an Auckland arterial?
Imagine if the same concept was applied elsewhere. “We aren’t banning healthcare, but we aren’t going to provide ‘gold plated’ care such as operations and vaccines”.
we should follow through on that. If cyclists don’t get “gold plated” infrastructure, neither do cars. Go back to gravel tracks. Fair’s fair. Maybe then all the vanity SUVs and utes will actually see some use for their ground clearance
Especially when most of us who browse this (excellent) blog have transport preferences that pre-date the motorcar …
So when is Auckland Council going to implement the CATR bike networks?
It will certainly be interesting to see the outcome of voting this term.
Just a note that the proposed legislation is still only a Bill, some parts of it, especially aspects like the division of responsibility between Council and the Local Boards, will be part of the submission process.
Very likely the LBs get a lot more power than currently though.
Yeah this is true, although given between the initial announcement last November and the bill revealed a month ago having similar aspects, as you say local boards will likely get a lot more power!
@Mackenzie ‘No one (well maybe a small amount) is advocating to ban bikes entirely’
We need that kind of honesty instead of pretending that a plastic hat protects riders from drivers.
Bicycles are already banned from motorways, with good reason. If we can’t be bothered to provide safe passage for walking or cycling on a given route, we should declare it a ‘local motorway’ and have done.
A map overlay of 60kph+ limits without existing separate bike ways should do the trick.