Dialogue: Motorway a shortcut to poverty

By TERENCE GOULD*

What is it with Auckland that, as a city and region, we always seem to struggle with a vision?

We all acknowledge that, with its geography, cultural makeup and economic presence, Auckland is unique. But Auckland is also just another modern city struggling with transport issues.

We should be able to learn from overseas cities' successes and failures and focus on what we think is important for this city - those values that will mean our grandchildren will choose to live, work and raise their families in Auckland.

Sadly, some of Auckland's business leaders choose to ignore those global lessons and push for more roads, more cars and a spiralling deterioration of the city's economic and environmental future.

When Professor Peter Newman, an internationally renowned authority on urban planning and transport solutions, learned that the Employers Federation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Automobile Association and Ports of Auckland were campaigning for the reinstatement of a 1950s roading solution for Auckland, his response was suitably blunt.

"Auckland is now worse than Los Angeles and other American cities in its priorities it seems," he said.

"Priorities are changing there. The average in all US cities for the past five years has seen growth in public transport of around 5 per cent and the growth in car use per person has dropped to less than 1 per cent.

"It seems that the road lobby are determined to keep you poor in Auckland. It is such a waste, as it does nothing for the new economy."

When advised more recently that the Auckland City Council had put the Eastern Motorway back on a transport agenda and allocated ratepayers' money to yet another study, Professor Newman's response was even more despairing.

"Unbelievable. What is wrong with your city? It seems to have a motorway curse. No decision on rail and the highway engineers just wait and leap."

A World Bank study led by Professor Newman concluded in 1997 that per capita wealth in developed cities diminishes with growth in car use.

In 37 cities around the world, good rail systems were shown to be pivotal to efficiency in economic and environmental terms.

Either Auckland is not a developed city or our leaders are in a 1950s timewarp. By revisiting the Eastern Motorway, before an upgraded passenger transport system even gets off the ground, Auckland seems to be walking a path that is taking us back in time.

It appears to be a path that is leading us in the opposite direction from the proven transport solutions of the developed world.

Judging by the reaction of Professor Newman, Auckland is choosing to chart its own course, wilfully ignoring the wisdom of the world's transport experts and the greater experience of developed cities with established and successful public transport systems.

In Impacts of Globalisation on Urban Transportation, Dr Jeff Kenworthy, a senior lecturer in urban environments, and Professor Newman compare poorer, developing Asian cities - Jakarta, Surabaya, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Manila and Seoul - with the wealthy Asian cities of Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong in terms of their transport priorities.

Car use is 24 per cent greater in the developing Asian cities than in the wealthy cities.

What's more, transit use is 64.1 per cent in the wealthy cities and only 40.2 per cent in the poorer cities, reinforcing the view that growth in a city's wealth and growth in car use are diametrically opposed.

Auckland's road lobby is turning Auckland into a Jakarta when we could be a Singapore, a Vancouver, a Zurich or a Stockholm, where per capita car use diminished and per capita transit use grew by 15 per cent between 1980 and 1990.

Tourism is an enormous contributor to the wealth of the world's rich cities. In Auckland, tourism contributes just under $2 billion a year to the city's economy. Competitive Auckland sees tourism as a vital future earner.

But getting around the city is a problem for tourists.

With a good transit system, tourism leaders believe tourists would stay one extra night, adding a further $800 million a year to Auckland's economy.

These are big numbers in terms of this city's future wealth. They provide a huge incentive for the establishment of a good transit system.

And let's not forget the harm an Eastern Motorway, by comparison, would have on the very environment our tourists come to admire.

Nothing justifies carving a motorway through Auckland's last inner city wetland, treasured recreational waterways and pristine Purewa Valley native parkland.

It's an environment and, indeed, a neighbourhood of which many Aucklanders are very protective.

The Eastern Motorway has been passionately opposed by this group for nearly 10 years.

It is supported by one of the world's authorities on the subject, Professor Newman, environmentalists, transit experts and a huge population of Aucklanders whose perspective is global, not insular, and generational, not short-term.

Vested-interest groups such as the Automobile Association might want to go back to the 1950s, but progressive thinkers are determined to take Auckland forward.

* Terence Gould, a businessman, is chairman of Stop the Eastern Motorway, an action group set up in 1994.