There is change in the air. The new broom is sweeping clean the ‘out of control’ CCO Auckland Transport and reigning in the ludicrous thinking.
Mayor Wayne Brown has appointed hard-working, experienced councillors who have that ‘old school’ attitude of ‘service’ to ratepayers into lead roles in Auckland Transport.
A new ‘Transport and Infrastructure Committee’ has been created with Chair John Watson from Albany Ward and Deputy Chair Christine Fletcher from Albert-Eden, and will be reinforced by Councillors Mike Lee from Central Auckland and Andrew Baker from Franklin. Appointees are spread from North to South across our diverse City.
Watson has been very vocal about the danger of the concrete separators at the edge of a cycleway on Upper Harbour Drive known as “Tim-tams”.
These are dangerous for both cyclists and vehicles, as evident by the number of accidents. All over Auckland, cycleway separators have reduced once wide, two lane arterial routes to tight, congestion-causing, single lane roads. These, along with potholes in unmaintained roads, and reduced speeds, achieve the opposite of the ‘Road to Zero’ plans for road safety.
Lee has extensive transport experience and is a champion for heavy rail to the airport in the rail corridor adjacent to the Southern Motorway. In his ‘maiden speech’ in the 2022 term Lee noted, “I recall Fulton Hogan was number two in the list of the top 20 corporates which were the beneficiaries of that $10b.
During the first 10 years of the Super City, Fulton Hogan earned $1.5b.
One can be sure it’s quite a bit more than that now.”
The amount of roadworks for this infrastructure, rather than discouraging car use, is instead just filling the pockets of the contractors with ratepayer funds as these preferred contractors pave their bank accounts, often twice over when these ill conceived designs are ripped out and ‘made good’.
My wishes in this redirection of Auckland Transport:
1. A law change has opened an opportunity to bring public transport in-house to AT, to be publicly owned and operated and instead of the goal being profit, it can be service. Bus drivers can be paid a ‘living wage’ and be given essential bathroom breaks.
This will attract more people into the job, which will result in less cancellations, making for a reliable bus service.
2. The reconfiguration of ‘walking and cycling’ into two separate categories, ‘walking and mobility impaired’ and ‘cycling and micro-mobility vehicles’. With 25% of the population having mobility impairment we should be designing for this sector ramp slopes and access widths. Fixing damaged footpaths would be one of the first priorities.
3. Designing with behavioural experts who are culturally sensitive to ‘Kiwi culture’. We all know that to Kiwis, ‘rules’ are a guideline. Don’t set up paths, like they did in West Lynn, that wander in a slalom course rather than taking a direct route, because we’ll generally walk across the shrubbery to take the direct route.
The Swedish ‘vision zero’ road safety strategy with speed cameras on open highways that puts names of offenders on a ‘shame list’, is more likely to be seen as a ‘badge of honour’ amongst peers of bogan petrol-heads in New Zealand and be as unsuccessful as ‘Police Ten Seven’ at reducing crime.
4. More frequent road and footpath repair, maintenance and clearing of rubbish and debris.
NZTA have admitted on RNZ, that they are intentionally slowing traffic to cause congestion, knowing this cause more emissions. AT and NZTA have used slower speeds, dangerous humps and bumps, narrowing of arterial roads, closing off roads, removing free turns and restricted numbers of vehicles through each light change to achieve this.
It’s all part of the ludicrous Ludo Campbell Reid plan to anger people out of their cars. Now it has to be reversed. Instead, we should be encouraging traffic flow while the public transport options are improved as an alternative to private vehicles.
The ‘carrot’ not the ‘stick’ will bring the people along with the plan to reduce emissions for our commitment to our ‘climate change emergency’.
Let’s take back the ‘City of Sails’ from the city of orange road cones. (GAEL BALDOCK, community advocate)
www.facebook.com/voteGaelBaldock
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