Brian Rudman: Mt Roskill cycleway test of Hubbard's resolve

It's great to see Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard girding his loins and declaring war on the cows and the tourist buses that threaten the wellbeing of Mt Eden.

But is he hero enough to stand up to his own bureaucrats and say no to the cycleway they want to slash across the face of Mt Roskill?

The mayor's pledge follows the council's decision to dedicate a set proportion of rates to the protection and maintenance of Auckland's unique volcanic heritage. The cycleway will be a true test of this commitment.

In yesterday's Herald, Mr Hubbard declared a multi-million dollar makeover of the poster-boy of volcanic cones, Mt Eden. It would be stage one of a project to transform the volcanic field to world heritage status. Mt Eden would be restored as "a fully reconditioned mountain" and become a template for similar make-overs of the city's main cones.

The only flaw in this timetable is that if his bureaucrats get their way, by the time it's time to save poor old working class Mt Roskill, there'll be yet another gash across its northern face to try to disguise.

The pig-headed determination of the city's transport planners to proceed with the cycleway despite opposition from the Auckland Regional Council, the Department of Conservation, Ngati Whatua and the Auckland Volcanic Cones Society shows a remarkable insensitivity both to recent history and to the intrinsic value of the mountain as a heritage site.

As you will recall, the volcanic cones society was the last man standing in a long battle to save the northern face of the mountain from the bulldozers creating State Highway 20. When all seemed lost, the society unearthed a long-forgotten century-old act of Parliament designed to protect Auckland's cones.

Suddenly the government road builders were willing to talk and eventually a compromise was reached which everyone could live with. Instead of a sheer scar up the mountain, the interface between mountain and highway would become a rounded re-creation of a natural shape. But just as road builders Transit New Zealand and the cone society were about to crack open the champagne, up popped Auckland City with revived plans for its cycleway. Originally the cycleway was to run along the top of the sheer embankment. The "new" cycleway was to be a platform 2m to 3m wide, in much the same place, cutting through what was now a "natural" curve in the landscape. In parts, to maintain a level track, it would be built up.

The good news, if there is any, is that council plans to lodge a resource consent application appear to have been stalled since last November.

The cones society says the route of the cycleway appears to go against the 2002 Environment Court decision by Judge John Treadwell. This ruling, in effect, declared that apart from a strip 2m wide at the top of the motorway embankment, the mountain would remain reserve land. The 2m strip would be for "inspection and maintenance purposes" only.

The ruling lifted the motorway designation from an 18m strip of mountain to the south of the motorway to ensure road widening didn't take place in the future. Judge Treadwell ordered that once the motorway was completed, this 18m strip "must be reinstated in conformity with the natural landscape and form in that vicinity, as soon as practicable".

It is within this 18m strip that the city now wants to build the cycleway.

After the mayor's pro-volcanoes declaration, John Street, cones society chairman, was quick to write to the mayor asking "whether the council had the authority to overturn the effect of an Environment Court decision".

He pointed out the judgment required the land immediately above the motorway be returned to its natural state. "A cycleway is not part of the natural state."

Mr Street applauded Mr Hubbard's comments about Mt Eden but added that "something seems wrong with your council if you can take such a protective stance on Mt Eden and yet let bulldozers loose on Mt Roskill to carve out a cycleway."

Once he's slain those cows, I'm happy to point the mayor in the direction of the planners.