With Auckland Transport’s latest move to charge for overnight parking, anyone would think that Auckland Council didn’t want anyone to go into the city centre and that would make the Central Rail Link a multibillion dollar failure.
CRL’s construction is not only the most expensive tunneling per kilometre in the world, with such a badly written contract that ratepayers and taxpayers keep having to put our hands in our pockets to finance, but it has also destroyed the very business and amenities that we would have wanted to visit.
The ‘Centre City Master Plan’ vision is based on people coming into the city, not passing through it, but it is a huge fail, just like its vision of increasing cycle users from 1% to 17% of commuters because even after the billions spent it has remained at 1%, destroying shopping villages in its wake.
The CCMP methodology involved: closing off of each end of Queen Street as a revenue trap; the road narrowing and removing of parking to allow ‘Access 4 Everyone’ (except those traveling by car or delivery vehicles); the increase in parking charging and now including evening rates; a potential toll to enter the city; a ‘Linear Park’ along Victoria Street; only bus access on Wellesley Street; narrowing of Quay Street to single lane; removal of the Downtown Carpark and now the demolition of the lower Hobson Street flyover – all apparently designed to force people onto the motorway to a second revenue trap by congestion charging.
According to CCMP p86, “Downtown Car Park building and Lower Hobson flyover mar the area. They obscure views to the city from the waterfront, act as a barrier to pedestrian movement, and create an unattractive environment. [It] could be redeveloped as the 'harbour window', and part of the public space network, specifically the city centre laneway circuit. The space needs to be enhanced as a postcard image of the city, to give a great and lasting first impression.”
Auckland already has laneways, Vulcan Lane, High Street, Lorne Street and Durham Lane that used to lead to His Majesty’s Theatre in the days when Queen Street was a hive of activity, buzzing with top fashion boutiques and were where fledgling designers who had made their way from design school to Cook Street Market to finally having a shop in those lanes alongside artists and artisans, and the Farmers' free-bus took customers on a circuit that included Karangahape Road.
Whilst researching last month’s article on the possible demolition of the flyover, I discovered that Fanshaw Street is the top of the old seawall and that the area by the Tepid Baths was where the sea used to lap against our shoreline at the lower level of Sturdee Street. The library archive supplied a photo showing the seawall construction and another of an unrecognisable Auckland harbour showing how many of the original timber buildings we have lost, other than the ‘Fosters’ building. Rather than CCMP’s vision to destroy, let’s celebrate Auckland’s historic seawall and the intimate spaces formed under the flyover that currently have the feel of those laneways. The perfect space for a ‘Seawall Market’.
As a student, I had stalls at Cook Street Market, just before its demolition for the Aotea Centre, and at the beginning of Victoria Park Market. I thought this quirky location was promising, so I turned for endorsement to a friend with 35 years' experience of festivals and markets in New Zealand. He grew up as a ‘barrow boy’ in South East London and has markets running through his veins – if you’ve met him you’d know what I mean. In 2000 he helped establish the successful Aotea Square Market with ‘The Edge’. That brought patrons back into the city, established many small businesses within the community and resulted in Auckland, along with the rest of New Zealand, embracing ‘market culture’.
The ‘Seawall Market’ would bring people to celebrate a ‘postcard perfect window into Auckland’s history’ and give tourists a reason to venture across the reclaimed land to the old foreshore. Whilst the Downtown Carpark is technically ‘sold’, the findings of the August Judical Review by ‘Save Queen Street’ may result in a better decision to build a podium of apartments on top of the existing building (like the Durham Street public carpark) including beautifying the outside with a steel mural (like the hospital carpark building). Hopefully leaving this strategic asset as a ‘Transport Mode Change Hub’ with the ‘Seawall Market’ via the Fanshaw Street ramp, extending into the carpark third floor.
(Gael Baldock)
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Published: May 2024