Andrew Barnes: How Auckland transport can earn the moral authority to get locals out of their cars

Auckland Transport wants to make way for more cycleways and bus lanes by removing kerbside parking on some roads. Photo / Dean Purcell

OPINION:

In a recent NZ Herald report Andrew McGill, the head of integrated network planning at Auckland Transport, mounted a defence of the Council-controlled organisation's plan to remove kerbside parking.

AT's objective is to make way for more cycleways and bus lanes, but small business owners say the loss of parking will affect their turnover.

McGill said AT would not back down on its plan, which has already been implemented in urban centres such as Mt Albert: "Our predetermined agenda is to create easy journeys for Aucklanders."

One of the problems with transport policy in Auckland is a historical pattern of senior executives making decisions without understanding the impact on business owners and other citizens. They go straight from idea to decision to action, without a pause to test their theories.

Many organisations which seek to make big changes will first conduct trials or pilots with a view to gathering data and drawing conclusions that will indicate how the change might work on a large scale.

Conversely, AT doesn't formally trial anything. It starts with a conclusion and works out how to get there.

Adding more cycleways and bus lanes is part of the grand vision to get more of us out of our cars and on to bikes, e-bikes, buses, trains and ferries, but Auckland public transport meets resistance because it is slower and less reliable than a private car. It eats into your time and reduces your options; you have to leave home and catch an earlier bus, train or ferry to get to work on time, and you cannot drop the kids at school first.

Auckland Council (which controls AT) seems to know all this – recently I watched as a Council van picked up a group of Council workers from the ferry to Waiheke. If those workers had relied on taking the bus they would have been late for work.

I have a solution, and it starts with the whole of AT. I suggest a condition of working for AT is that you walk, cycle, scooter or take public transport to and from work.* The only exceptions are those whose essential work equipment includes trucks or vans, such as road-making workers.

This can be implemented as a first phase so the impact can be studied and measured, ensuring that productivity is not adversely affected. Then, all Auckland Council employee car parks will be closed and those staff required to use alternative means of travel.

Finally, as part of the policy to make AT more accountable for – and practically familiar with – its decisions, I suggest the board be reconstituted to make the Auckland mayor the chair and Auckland councillors half the board members. This brings together accountability and professional directorship.

My own experience as chair of RFA is that Council often blocked proposals – and then blamed the CCO for not addressing the problem. This way, there is no place to hide.

In a lot of cases, policies such as AT's agenda do not achieve the outcomes they promise. Often, it is more greenwashing. AT has structured this the wrong way around – you have to build a fast, reliable and accessible transport network and incentivise people to use it. Instead, AT is driving Aucklanders to things that do not have a good environmental impact.

Greenwashing is prevalent in the transport evolution, and it is not as simple as switching to "clean energy" alternatives to the internal combustion engine. Recent research by Volvo which analysed full lifetime CO² emissions confirmed that electric vehicles are far "dirtier" out of the factory gate, because of the carbon-intensiveness of the resource extraction.

A typical EV driver will need to drive 148,000km to reach CO2 emission parity with the petrol-powered equivalent – unless the driver is in a low-emission economy where energy sources include more nuclear and renewables and parity comes at about 83,700km. Volvo has stated its commitment to an all-electric model range, and this data relates to the same model, one internal combustion and one electric. However, none of these figures account for a battery change.

Likewise, the e-bike is only a more environmentally sound option if it replaces a car; if a person forgoes a bus for the bike, in all likelihood that is the less green option considering the number of passenger journeys a bus can facilitate each day. A scooter is better than a car, but less green than walking. And so on.

We can all agree that Auckland urgently needs a world-class public transport network. My argument is that to get it, we have to put AT's people on the spot. The world has changed, and AT must show it is changing with it and learning fast by doing, among its own leaders and staff, what it is asking of Aucklanders. Then the organisation will have both the data and the moral authority to bring Auckland on the journey.

• Andrew Barnes is a businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder of Perpetual Guardian.

* Correction: an earlier version of this article suggested that all car parking for AT is removed – for the board, senior executives and every staff member and contractor. Auckland Transport has since informed the Herald that it has not had parking for board members, senior executives, the chief executive, or general staff members. There is only parking for fleet vehicles for employees that are required to drive as part of their roles and a small number of guest parks. While it is not mandatory, Auckland Transport staff are encouraged to use public transport or walk, cycle, or scooter to work.