KEY POINTS:
At least the Auckland City Council has been candid in explaining the sudden impulse to put permanent bus lanes on each side of Queen St. It is, according to Deputy Mayor Bruce Hucker, a matter of striking while drivers' expectations have been dulled by the street's long-running upgrade. "While people's behaviour is changed as we are doing each section, we are trying to make that a more permanent change," he says. That might be all very well if drivers were the only people to be considered. But others with a far greater interest, notably retailers and building owners, deserve more than the cursory consultation that seems likely to occur over the next fortnight.
The history of the Queen St project emphasises as much. The council's 2004 blueprint to reinvigorate what has become a cheerless strip was predicated upon pedestrians and buses gaining greater priority. Transforming as much of Queen St as possible into a pedestrian-friendly environment and providing much-improved public transport were seen as the keys to attracting people back there. The other side of that coin - discouraging motorists - was to be achieved by reducing traffic to one lane in each direction from Wellesley St to Customs St.
There is much merit in this. Aucklanders will swap suburban shopping malls for the Golden Mile only if it is transformed from an important traffic thoroughfare into a street that is pleasant and interesting to stroll around. People, not cars, must be the dominant focus, as is the case with the vast majority of the world's successful city centres.
Retailers and property owners saw much of the logic of this and there was little discord over the council's plans for wider footpaths, more street furniture and such like. But many objected to motorists being discouraged so strongly. Their doubts were acknowledged. A revised plan, in 2005, saw a return to two lanes of traffic each way and car parking along the kerb.
Bus lanes were not raised in initial consultations about the upgrade. Yet now, to take advantage of the fact that motorists have become attuned to an unfriendly driving environment, they are to become a central feature. Their presence, in the outer lanes now blocked by roadworks, will leave just one lane each way for cars, goods vehicles and taxis. Additionally, the council proposes to cut the speed limit to 30km/h to further safeguard pedestrians.
Unsurprisingly, some retailers are unhappy about the abrupt change of tack. A few worry that most of their customers now arrive by car and will be discouraged by the parking difficulties prompted by the bus lanes. That seems unlikely. Few people drive into the city centre expecting to find a parking spot on Queen St. Indeed, council estimates confirm that significantly more people already arrive by bus than by car. Bus lanes, a reduced number of cars, and improved driver behaviour will surely make Queen St a far more attractive proposition for shoppers.
Another cause of trepidation is far more understandable, however. Subject only to council approval, initial sections of the bus lanes could be introduced as soon as the upgrade's second section, between Wellesley St and Victoria St, is completed early next month. The consultation period will be short. Too short.
The addition of bus lanes brings further balance to the upgrade, but people who have had to endure jackhammers at their shopfronts for month after month deserve to have their concerns and pleas for mitigating measures taken seriously. Something instigated so suddenly should, whatever its merits in theory, be examined from every angle.
