Last month without fanfare, Auckland Transport (AT) announced the re-launch of their failed cycleway plan Route 1 - Garnet Road, Old Mill Road, Surrey Crescent and Route 2 - Richmond Road and Surrey Crescent.
This grand plan includes spending over $30 million dollars to build five kms of separated cycleway parallel to the footpath.
AT's slick promotional brochure was designed to sell the already unpopular idea back to the same community that soundly rejected the plans over four years ago.
With raised tables across every side street, relocated bus stops jutting into the roadway, parking removed from outside schools, shops and cafes, the traffic will be slowed to a crawl.
Our once free flowing roads will become congested and cluttered, an inner city obstacle course with massive main road humps, half bumps, plastic fluoro hit sticks (an eyesore!) and unforgiving traffic Islands.
This all driven by an entrenched philosophy at Auckland Council and AT that is vigorously supported by councillor Pippa Coom, Chris Darby and Richard Hills, hand in hand with the powerful lobby groups Greater Auckland, Generation Zero and Bike Auckland, who have contacts in and outside of council at the highest level.
Last time they attempted to execute this plan the community stopped them felling mature street trees, halted the construction of the badly designed and unsafe cycleways and forced a rethink.
Unembarrassed by the West Lynn cycleway debacle these characters all shook off the failure like wet dogs in the rain.
Concerned citizens stood on diggers to highlight the design issues and eventually forced the removal of the extremely dangerous traffic island at the top of Richmond Road. Community groups met with the authorities, tabled constructive ideas and pointed out environmental inconsistencies. They shouldered abuse from the peddle pushers who tried to dominate and bully everyone into their vision of a cargo bike future.
Now the tongue-in-cheek consultation starts again with less than 30 days for feedback. The public is expected to comb the detailed information buried deep on AT's website, make sense of it and comment coherently. Crickey, isn't it enough that we have a pandemic, soaring inflation and a broken sewage system spewing faeces into the harbour every time it rains?
The Grey Lynn School Safer Speed experiment is a classic example of build it and the public can just put up with it. It was an ambush in the dead of night. Even the Police sergeant AT called to remove us, agreed the road works were insane, but he had no power to stop the Auckland Transport juggernaut.
There was no consultation with the public, no communication with local residents or businesses. Only supportive voices were invited to the closed school consultation while dissenters were ostracised and belittled.
Have you noticed the traffic jam every morning and afternoon outside Grey Lynn school? Carbon monoxide filling the air as parents park illegally while children disembark right into the designated cycleway.
Can we not be trusted to regulate our speed? Common sense says slow down near a school or pedestrian crossing. Perhaps providing every household with a free copy of the road code would be a cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
Why not subsidise second hand electric cars to save the planet, better still invest in hydrogen fuels of the future, but stop trying to drag us all back to 1900.
The voices of the lobby groups are loud and clear, filling the echo chamber of the cone head committees, amplified on National Radio and in main stream media. The Ponsonby News seems to be the only broadsheet prepared to publish an alternative whilst Coom and Co doggedly regulate roads and rules.
Where is the public record of feedback from the community re Route 1 & 2?
Creating congestion and street disruption will not force people out of their cars. This prevailing attitude will only cost ratepayers, be removed within the decade and make council approved contractors rich in the meantime.
With local body elections this year we must all become more informed and resolve this street battle. I believe we must learn to share our roads, develop empathy and respect for each other and encourage the free flow of movement that leads to a more open, transparent and accountable civil society.
Auckland Transport claim they value your feedback so I urge you to give it to them directly, write to projects@at.govt.nz then share that to saveourstreets2022@gmail.com so there is a public record of what you really think!
Lisa Prager, Westmere
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Published 4 March 2022