Shore wants more clout over cheeky lane cheats

By WAYNE THOMPSON

The North Shore City Council wants its parking officers to take over enforcement of bus-only lanes from police to make sure the job is done properly.

It is seeking Government permission to extend the parking officers' powers.

Only the police can stop moving vehicles and issue offence notices.

The council says it also needs Government support to pay the $140,000 a year extra cost that a beefed-up parking operation would cost.

The city's mayor, George Wood, said yesterday that separate payments from the Government, or Transfund, were a must.

"Our citizens should not have to pay twice - to pay tax to fund the police for a job they can't do, and pay again for the city to do it."

North Shore is the only city seeking to extend its powers from dealing with only parked-vehicle offences.

But staff of the Auckland Regional Council and Auckland and Waitakere Cities are also interested in stopping misuse of bus lanes.

They joined North Shore in discussing enforcement of priority lanes for buses and carpools with the Ministry of Transport and the police.

The North Shore transport manager, Warwick Wade, said it was clear that the police did not have the resources to get much tougher on illegal users of priority lanes.

North Shore has a special lane for buses and vehicles with more than three occupants on Onewa Rd, which links Northcote and Birkenhead to the Northern Motorway.

The lane's efficiency is hampered by cheeky and cunning illegal users, who avoid passenger count checks by running red lights and turning in and out of side roads and even driveways.

A plan for a $130 million Bus Rapid Transit system on the North Shore will need more bus-only lanes for express feeder routes.

The chairman of the city's works committee, Bruce Lilly, said the Government now gave the council half of the revenue from fines generated by city parking officers.

If the city were successful in enforcing the lanes, then it could expect fewer infringements and so a drop in fines revenue.

He said the council faced some hard negotiating with the Ministers of Transport and Police to try to get a bigger share of fines revenue to recover the costs of extra staff and higher training standards.

The ministry and police wanted any case put to the Government to be supported by Auckland, Manukau and Waitakere councils, he said.

This was to obtain a consistent regional approach to staff training, enforcement and fines.

The police national traffic safety manager, Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald, said the police supported councils being empowered to enforce some moving traffic offences.

Auckland City Council transport planner Denis Mander said council staff would report on bus-only lane enforcement proposals to next month's meeting of its transport and roading committee.

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