Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown riding on Great North Rd over the weekend. Photo / Alex Robertson
OPINION:
A woman told a meeting of the Auckland Council last week that “as a car driver on K Rd” she was upset that she didn’t have “any wiggle room”. She blamed the bike lanes.
I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt: I assume she didn’t put a moment’s thought into what she said. “Wiggle room”, after all, is a euphemism for weaving around on the road.
Imagine thinking it’s okay to do that anywhere, let alone on Karangahape Rd. It’s one long traffic hazard, that street, and let’s say that’s because of some exuberantly unpredictable pedestrians. It’s got nothing to do with the bike lanes and it’s definitely best for everyone if the cars don’t wiggle.
That council meeting had a very busy agenda, yet it made time for the K Rd wiggler and another submitter who said children shouldn’t be cycling by themselves until they were “15 or 16, and that’s the ones that are reasonably confident”. She added, “Children shouldn’t be cycling to primary school no matter what.”
In a way, it was refreshing to hear that, because it defines the cycling debate very clearly. Do we want a city where kids can ride bikes, or don’t we?
The meeting heard from several presenters in a similar vein. Is this just how democracy has to work? For several reasons, I don’t think so.
First, there’s a pattern. Some of those presenters have appeared before the council several times in recent months. Although they don’t represent any group, the meeting’s chair, John Watson, gave them extra time. They’re being allowed to hog the meetings.
Other would-be submitters were advised they would not be able to speak, although it was suggested they could have their say at the next meeting. Watson also cut the time councillors could ask questions, despite complaints by some of them.
Second, there are some more important things for councillors to talk about. That meeting last week was of the transport and infrastructure committee, comprising the mayor, all councillors and two members of the Independent Māori Statutory Board. The agenda included reports from Auckland Transport, KiwiRail and Auckland Light Rail.
The council had also recently been told about the new date for the City Rail Link (CRL) opening, the extra billion dollars it was going to cost, and another billion dollars council was on the hook for after the summer storms.
Councillor Mike Lee rightly complained that they should be spending more time on the big agenda items. He might like to have a word with the councillors so obsessed with stopping cycleways they couldn’t let the meeting move on.
Third, there’s another issue lurking behind this one. The cycleway under discussion was part of Auckland Transport’s proposals for improvements in the Grey Lynn stretch of Great North Rd.
The proposals include better arrangements for the car carriers that currently park in the middle of the road, better bus stops, longer priority bus lanes, improved pedestrian safety and vehicle safety, and more greenery in the form of trees and green swales to soak up rainwater. Some car parks will be removed, but more will be created on the side streets.
There are two primary schools along the route. The residential population is growing fast, due to the new apartment blocks along the ridge. Car dealers are also building office blocks above some of their showrooms.
The proposal is not, fundamentally, about cycleways. It’s about urban renewal, about making the street safe, functional and attractive - fit for purpose as its use evolves. Cycleways are just one part of it.
But opponents insist on treating cycling as if it’s the only issue. They call the project “gold-plated”, although the cycleway component is only about $5 million, or 20 per cent of the total $25 million cost.
Mayor Wayne Brown fell into this trap with his contributions to the debate. He suggested the best thing might be to give AT just $5 million and see what it came up with.
That would produce a cycleway. But it would be done by laying some concrete dividers and a lick of paint on part of the road, while removing car parks without putting in more elsewhere. None of the other goals of the project would be addressed.
Brown also said he used to live at the Grey Lynn village end of the route and often rode a bike into town from there. But he did it “on Williamson Ave and the footpath”, which worked well for him.
Riding on the footpath is illegal. Williamson Ave is narrower than Great North Rd so less able to take a cycleway. Great North Rd is where the new growth is occurring. It’s also critical to resolving the car-carrier dangers and improving safety for kids at Newton School and St Joseph’s School.
Brown told the council meeting he would ride both routes and decide which he preferred. This approach – whatever works for me is fine – is a terrible basis for decision-making. On the weekend, he was spotted riding his bike on the footpath on Great North Rd.
The Great North Rd project has been in development and public consultation since 2016. It has wide public support, including from the Grey Lynn Residents Association, the Grey Lynn Business Association and the local schools. Waka Kotahi, the Government transport agency, will pay for 51 per cent of it. The rest is already in the AT budget - in that sense, it’s not new spending.
It’s not perfect. For reasons of shade, aesthetics, recreation and above all flood management, it should have more greenery. Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton revealed last week that Auckland is becoming less permeable. With every new roading project, and elsewhere, that needs to change.
But sometimes perfect is the enemy of progress. More greenery can still be added.
The project could have been greenlit by the AT board at the end of February. Instead, the board decided to ask the council if it had a view. But AT’s acting chair, Wayne Donnelly, asked the council meeting last week, “If not here, where?”
Great North Rd has problems with car carriers, schools and safety that need resolving. It’s walkably and bikably close to the city. It’s growing fast and it’s so wide you could land an aeroplane on it. And it’s a sea of tarseal that needs breaking up.
Why didn’t the council just tell the AT board it should get cracking? There’s a staggering disconnect between the universally agreed need for flood adaptation and the reluctance to approve street development that helps achieve that goal. Why? There’s only one reason. Hatred, by some, of cycleways.
Instead, the council voted to do a site visit and make up its mind later. The clock is ticking: If there’s no decision by June 30, the government funds will disappear.
That site visit should take place at 8.30am, when the street is full of all its users: schoolkids and other pedestrians, car carriers and commuters in cars and on buses and bikes.
Meanwhile, what about those extra billions the council will have to find?
The CRL is “sponsored” 50:50 by the Government and council, so on the face of it, each side will have to find an extra $500 million. Council will debate the issue this Thursday, but Brown has already signalled he wants the Government to pay more.
I’m with him, on that at least. If motorways are paid for by Government, why not major rail infrastructure?
The “operational response” and rebuild after this summer’s cyclone and flooding are expected to cost between $900 million and $1.2 billion. The council says it could meet some of this new demand by delaying capital works and “other high-priority investments”, but it hasn’t said what.
This will put the focus on debt in the next 10-year budget, to be drawn up and debated later this year and into next year. Debt is currently tracking below 220 per cent of revenue until 2030-31, but the council’s self-imposed ceiling is 290 per cent.
There does seem to be some wiggle room for a rainy day. I’ll return to these big budget issues soon.
Correction: An earlier version of this column said John Watson denied an affected residents association the ability to speak at an Auckland Council meeting. This was incorrect.
He's facing five charges for alleged crimes over three days.