Brian Rudman: Electric buses have power to transform blighted downtown

In 2000, 153 Aucklanders joined in a contest to redesign the downtown Britomart precinct, coming up with many wild and wonderful proposals. Now we're being asked to repeat the process, and submit our ideas for liberating neighbouring Queens Wharf.

To get the creative juices flowing, let me tease entrants with the ideas of three of the Britomart contestants who couldn't resist throwing ideas for revamping the wharf into their entries as well. These were, in no particular order, an extension of the ferry terminal, a huge aviary, and an urban park.

This time, imaginations are rather constricted by the requirement to include a cruise ship terminal in the mix, and by the insultingly short, three-week time limit in which they're supposed to come up with a unique and world-class design.

The contest comes after a flurry of activity triggered by Prime Minister John Key's demand that the wharf be developed as "party central" for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and the Government's decision to go halves with the Auckland Regional Council in buying the wharf from the port company.

The purchase was widely acclaimed as signalling the removal of the red fence which for so long has divided the port from the city proper. Auckland's Berlin Wall would fall, we were told, and Queen St and the wharf that bears its name would be united as they were a century ago.

I like the historic red railings and hope all the talk of knocking them down is just hyperbole. All that's needed to achieve the desired end is that the grand gates be unlocked.

The talk of removing the red fence also distracts from the real barrier separating the city from the surf, and that's the bus station that has occupied lower Queen St since July 2003, when Mayor John Banks drove down Queen St in a horse-drawn carriage to open the new transport complex.

The original grand plan was to burrow deep into the ground under and behind the old post office, creating a multi-level building which would serve as both a bus and train station.

But excess cost, and complaints from bus operators about the wasted time that would be spent driving buses up and down the ramps, sank these dreams of an underground integrated transport interchange.

Even a simple underpass to the ferry terminal was dumped for cost reasons.

The economy version was chosen instead. The trains disappeared underground, but the buses remained on top to blight the city streets for blocks around.

Until then, the bottom of Queen St next to the wharf had been the wide and often windswept, Queen Elizabeth Square. On a fine summer's day it could be jam-packed with people and pigeons. On a bleak winter's day it was forbidding. But at least it was a pedestrian-friendly link between the city and the water. Not any more.

Now, from morning until late at night, this one-time people place is dominated by the throbbing of bus engines and the choking stink of diesel fumes. Up the side alleys it's the same. Along Customs St and up Albert St and beyond the pattern is repeated.

For every driver who turns his motor off while he waits, two others leave them running.

For waiting passengers and passers-by alike, the noise and fume pollution are infuriating.

There seems no quick solution, but until we reclaim this bottom portion of Queen St for the people, all the grand talk of a continuous link between the wharf and Auckland's main street is just bunkum.

One answer would be to insist that only electric buses be allowed in the inner-city canyons. That would eliminate noise and pollution problems.

Indeed, the whole city would benefit from such a change. Imagine the relief for Auckland University and Auckland Hospital if the buses soon to be pouring along the new central connector busway, were electric.

An interim quick fix would be to move the main bus terminal to the broad strip of wharf land by Quay St between Queens and Captain Cook wharves.

Then the city blocks blighted by waiting diesel buses would be freed from incessant noise and stench. And the concept of creating a pedestrian flow from the city on to Queens Wharf, would start to have some reality.