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Opinion by Simon Wilson
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues. He joined the Herald in 2018.
People get really upset about road cones. When I said I thought they were a good thing in an interview on RNZ last week, there was a flood of frustrated and angry responses.
Our wonderful new mayor, who says he has listened to the people at over 300 electioncampaign meetings, promises to rid the city of them.
At least, that's what he kept saying before the election. Since then, he's added the word "unnecessary".
But even if some cones are "unnecessary", why does it matter?
Me, I love a good road cone. For all these reasons …
1. They're our scapegoats
In the Bible, the scapegoat, or "escape goat", was ritually loaded up with the sins of the people and driven into the wilderness. Instead of blaming each other for everything bad in the world, you heaped your righteous fury on the goat. Ancient Syrians and Greeks did something similar.
Road cones are our scapegoats. We blame them for all the sins of the city council. But it's good to have them, because otherwise, whenever we got stuck in traffic, we might get angry at each other.
We have a shoddy industrial-safety record in this country. Road cones, like hi-vis clothing, are part of a society-wide effort to do something about that. It's good to know cones give road workers a better chance of going home each night.
3. They save your life
That slip and that pothole could kill you if they weren't marked.
The line of cones that slows you down on the motorway, well before you get to the site of the roadworks, is also there to help save your life.
4. They save your car
They're also there to stop you damaging your car. Or other people.
5. They mean something is being fixed
As everyone who has ever fixed anything knows, there are some jobs you simply can't do properly without a few cones.
When you see a line of road cones, you know somebody is making something better.
Road cones along Tamaki Drive at Mission Bay, prior to the new cycleway being installed. Photo / Dean Purcell
6. Except when that's not true, sadly
Unfortunately, some road cones mean something is not being fixed. A bit of the road falls into a gully, out come the road cones, and that's it. No one ever fixes the road.
Every local body and roading authority in the country shares your pain. The more infrastructure we build and the longer we leave our old infrastructure unimproved, the more demands there are on what they call "renewals". It means the maintenance and repair budget.
And because we have underfunded local authorities for decades – ratepayers resisting rates rises and governments refusing to provide more funds – the renewals budgets are really stretched.
Everyone wants that hole fixed. No one wants to pay for it. It's probably not the fault of the roading authority that your favourite hole hasn't got to the top of their must-do pile yet.
And it's definitely not the fault of the road cones. But, I guess, see 1 above.
7. They mean we're a real city
Next time you visit a city overseas, take a look around. I will personally come and remove a thousand road cones from wherever they annoy you most, if you do not discover that city is digging up its streets.
Construction and renewal, surrounded by road cones, has become a defining condition of modern city life. Best get used to it. It means, see 5 above and 9, 10, 11 below.
8. The mayor doesn't like them
As mentioned, our wise-beyond-his-years new mayor has identified that road cones are a scourge.
On the face of it, this is a strange thing for him to say. Once upon a time he used to work in construction and as everyone knows he has solemnly promised to "fix" things. If he casts his mind back, he might remember how valuable cones can be. See 2, 3, 4 and 5 above.
But it's not a biggie. If Wayne Brown is upset about this, all it shows is that he's easily distracted by peripheral irritants. It's quaint, really. There are far worse things to be than quaint.
So many road cones and so much work to be done. Photo / Dean Purcell
9. They're a sign of change, not a cause of it
Have you noticed? We're changing the ways we live. Auckland Transport isn't making us do this, as Brown apparently thinks. On the contrary, it's scrabbling to keep up.
Inner cities are no longer just CBDs. There are 45,000 people living in central Auckland, which makes it twice the size of the largest suburbs like Remuera and Avondale and five to 10 times bigger than most.
Every day more people arrive in the city centre on public transport than in a private car. And the busiest pedestrian days are now on the weekend: the crowds come for events, shopping and amenities like the waterfront.
It's not just the city centre. Town centres from Warkworth to Pukekohe are bursting at the seams; metropolitan centres like Takapuna and Manukau are undergoing a rebirth and the growth of new centres like Westfield and Drury is staggering.
We're in the middle of the largest housing boom in the country's history and most of it is in Auckland.
More road cones, please! We need more public amenities, improved water and other utilities, more shops, more workplaces and more transport links everywhere. And more houses.
10. It's worth it
Remember the fuss about Quay St? The disruption, the unnecessary work, the endless letters to the paper, all the road cones!
Quay St, west of Queen St, is now a busy, highly functional and very lovely public realm on the waterfront.
It's part of a major public transport hub servicing trains, buses and ferries, all of which have new or newly renovated terminals and stations. Pedestrians have their own wide footpaths, cyclists and scooterers have a dedicated cycleway and – could it really be true? – the traffic flows smoothly too.
The seawall beneath has been rebuilt, so the city's edge won't crumble into the water. Mature pohutukawa are planted in tree pits that filter the stormwater. A beautiful new park called Te Wānanga is cantilevered over the water, with 600m of mussel lines hanging beneath. The mussels are cleansing the seawater.
We got a better city from those road cones.
It's the same story on Karangahape Rd and in so many other parts of town.
Te Wanānga, the new public park next to the Ferry Terminal, with mussel lines hanging beneath. Photo / Isthmus
11. Road cones mean better driving
Despite the fuss about cycleways and parking, most cones in Auckland signal work that will make the roads better for traffic.
That includes new roads, new motorway lanes, road sealing, resealing and other repairs, and safer road layouts for all users.
It also includes dedicated busways and priority bus lanes, which are critical to managing congestion in a growing city.
12. Road cones are cheap and easy
Is there a way to make better use of your local streets? With road cones and other portable devices, you can trial it first, before anyone commits to spending serious money.
Road cones have the beauty of being cheap, easy to use and instantly recognisable. They're like books, electric jugs and e-bikes: a technology extremely fit for purpose.
13. But they use so many!
What exactly is the problem? You think they should be spaced further apart? See 1 above and 14 below.
14. They're only road cones
Some people in this world right now are fighting for their lives in war. Others are watching their homes fall into the sea, their crops wither and die, the land that has been their life and their livelihood razed to the ground by wildfires.
Meanwhile, we're complaining about road cones.
Parts of our country are also being devastated by the weather, more often and more severely than before. And when it happens to us, who doesn't fall to their knees and give thanks for the road cones?
