Fran O'Sullivan: Trees the least of our problems

Our Dick - as in Dick Hubbard - is proving to be, well, a bit of a dick when it comes to being mayor of New Zealand's largest city.

It is difficult to believe Hubbard's crew has been wasting time - and ratepayers' money - by trying to axe exotic trees in Queen St in favour of a bunch of natives.

Planting cabbage trees and nikau palms along a boy-racers' drag route in the misguided belief this will attract topline apartment stores back to Queen St is fairyland stuff.

It was inevitable the matrons of Remuera would declare arms over the threatened trees.

The mayor should have seen this coming. He got into a similar stoush a few months back when he wanted to rip up Vulcan Lane's old red paving stones and replace them with flat black tiles. Slow learner, our Dick.

If Hubbard's mayoralty is not to be a total write-off, he needs to get his Auckland City Council staff focused on real environmental issues - like the city's shocking air quality which is a national scandal, the pong that makes a stroll to some smart restaurants in fashionable High St on a sweltering summer's day as distasteful as any second-world backstreet, the storm water system breaches that still allow e-coli bacteria to burgeon off city beaches after a decent downfall, the lack of a light rail or electrified tram service to get people around-town when congestion taxes are finally implemented to eliminate more of those pollution-spewing Japanese imports and diesel vehicles from the central city, and the lack of real investment by central government in a fast, mass-transport rail system that will underpin the forecast population growth to 2 million people by 2040.

There have been strategy reports by the armful on the steps Auckland needs to take to become a world-class city. Remember Mayor Christine Fletcher's hopes to turn Auckland into a "Pacific Tiger"?

And still nothing concrete happens to turn cliche into reality.

Committee for Auckland chairman Ron Carter has declared this year must be the time for an action agenda to be implemented to lift the city's game. But all the urban design in the world will not attract new business here if the place becomes a choke pit.

Don't believe me? Well, have a look at the appalling pollution coming from a large swag of the estimated 744,000 motor vehicles registered in Auckland.

The roads lobby bangs on about the estimated $1 billion net lift to the Auckland economy if the place is covered by splurging new motorways. But few business lobbyists factor in the other side of the equation: Figures from a preliminary health impact assessment that suggests the present cost of fine particle emissions in the Auckland region could be as high as $1.3 billion a year.

This study - which has yet to be released - estimates 400 people die prematurely each year.

Then there are 750,000 restricted activity days a year in Auckland which result in quaintly termed "sub-lethal" problems. That's stuff like arteriosclerosis, strokes, predisposition to cancer and stunted lung growth.

On top of that are the 13.4 per cent of Aucklanders who suffer from asthma - and the percentage is growing.

It's a chicken and egg situation.

The motorway lobbyists argue that people need cheap cars to travel across Auckland to work. They also need new motorways because public transport is not up to scratch.

There has been talk aplenty at central and government levels for years over the need for cleaner fuel and more efficient engines to reduce pollutants, such as nitrous oxide and diesel particulates. But the Government has shied away from legislating to get polluting cars off the road.

The Auckland Regional Council re-ran its 0800 Smokey campaign to try to make air quality a public issue.

It has had some successes, but getting police to take action against the owners of cars that belch smoke for longer than a 10 second period does not appear to be a high priority.

An Auckland Region land transport strategy document released last year forecast a 21 per cent rise in carbon dioxide emissions by 2016 - about 1500 tonnes in each morning traffic peak - even under a preferred strategic option that involves spending billions on public transport.

So unless central Government really gets down to business there is no hope in Hades that it will be able to reduce greenhouse emissions back to 1990 levels in line with our Kyoto commitments.

I don't want to be unnecessarily alarmist but even Sir Ron's hopes will be consigned to pipedreams if new businesses wanting to set up shop in Auckland are banned because overall pollution levels are too high.