The Meola Rd roadworks in Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton
OPINION
Summertime, and the stupidity seems boundless.
Sometimes, it’s official. Council officers told Long Bay locals the toy library they put out on the beach was against the rules. It had “non-compliant signage”.
We need more non-compliant signage, if you ask me. There’s a sign on a berm near my house that says “Witch Parking Only”. It’s illegal, harmless, a little breath of pleasure in the street and very effective at keeping the cars away. Which is more than you can say for the official signs.
Sometimes, the stupidity comes from the locals themselves. Herne Bay residents would love it if their beaches stayed clear of human faeces after heavy rain, but some of them are also trying to stuff up the very project that’s fixing the problem.
All because they don’t want the contractor temporarily disrupting a corner of their park.
There are parks in Mt Roskill, Ōwairaka, Māngere and many other suburbs where corners have been dug up for this exact same project. It’s temporary disruption for the greater good. Locals have felt the need to get in the paper complaining and hire lawyers to stop it exactly zero times.
Presumably, it’s only a few Herne Bay residents kicking up a fuss. It doesn’t seem credible that most of the people in New Zealand’s wealthiest suburb are either that stupid or that selfish, does it? It would be nice if the sensible ones pulled their entitled Nimby neighbours into line.
Summertime stupidity and selfishness both abound. Down the road in Pt Chevalier, a football club manager has complained his guys can’t use their carpark on Meola Rd at Seddon Field, because of roadworks.
Despite those playing fields being open at the other end to a road with hundreds of parks.
There’s a rumour Auckland Transport is remaking Meola Rd so it’s too narrow for buses. I struggle to understand how anyone could think that was credible, but the same thing was said about Tāmaki Drive, on which the buses run just fine. And the harbour bridge, for that matter.
I did check with AT anyway, and they confirmed the buses will keep using the road. Are such rumours merely stupid, or are they malicious?
That project – which includes water infrastructure, climate resilience, better bus stops, safe cycling and walking and better parking – has also produced one of the feelgood stories of the summer. As councillor Chris Darby told council last week, he was there on Waitangi Day, while the crew worked on in the sweltering heat, and locals brought them food and drink.
Something for the Herne Bay lot in that, I reckon.
And sometimes, the stupidity comes from politicians. The new Minister for Auckland, Simeon Brown, who is also the Minister of Transport, thinks the purpose of transport planning is to let cars go faster. And he thinks the best way to do that is to encourage more people to drive.
His boss, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, seems to be encouraging him.
Luxon and Brown announced last week they would be cancelling the regional fuel tax (RFT). They called it a “cost of living” measure designed to “reduce the price of fuel”.
Almost certainly, that will not happen. Petrol already costs less in Auckland than in most other places. Prices also vary around the city and from week to week.
After June 30, the petrol companies will no longer have to cough up 11.5 cents a litre in tax, but it will be remarkable if they take that money off the price of petrol at the pump. They’ll have no difficulty disguising what happens to it.
The minister has made it clear he wants the RFT decision to bring a halt to spending on cycleways and raised-table pedestrian crossings. But unless other ways to tax the public are introduced, it will also stop spending on major busways.
The Government promised to cancel the RFT during the election campaign, so the move is no surprise. But as Mayor Wayne Brown says, “They didn’t campaign on stopping RFT and putting up rates,” which is what the council will face without that tax. The mayor will resist that mightily.
As for ending the funding for cycleways and raised pedestrian crossings, this raises safety issues, emissions issues and health issues.
Of course it’s true that raised crossings slow the traffic: that’s the point. We need urban traffic to go slower because, too often, it’s too dangerous.
This isn’t a whacko idea. One example: the raised crossings that form part of the current roadworks between Great North Rd and Pt Chevalier. All six major schools on the route – Newton Central, Grey Lynn, Westmere, Western Springs, Pasadena Intermediate and Point Chevalier – have advised Auckland Transport they want them.
That should be no surprise. Community support for safer streets has always been strong among the people who live, work, play and go to school there.
Minister Brown seems to think pedestrian crossings and cycleways are the root of all congestion woes. But if that really was true, how does he explain why the motorways are our most congested roads?
The fact is, congestion is caused by too many cars. It can only be managed by providing good alternatives to driving, and encouraging those who can to use those alternatives.
Again, this isn’t a crazy idea. It’s orthodox transport analysis everywhere in the world.
Sadly, neither Simeon Brown nor his boss have ever said anything to suggest they understand this, so perhaps Wayne Brown could explain it to them. He gets it.
Then again, the Government hasn’t indicated it’s listening to him either. With those transport announcements last week, made without his participation, it’s starting to look like a challenge to the mayor’s single most important desire: for Auckland to lead the process of planning for Auckland.
That is, the new Government is ignoring a critical relationship until it becomes a crisis. Ring a bell? Haven’t we just spent several weeks learning what happens when it does that?
It begs the question: why is Simeon Brown the Minister for Auckland?
He wants councils to create water authorities with off-balance-sheet debt and no guarantees from the Crown or councils. Fund managers and ratings agencies have consistently said this is expensive and dangerous.
He blew an extraordinary opportunity last week with the Committee for Auckland. This group brings together leading figures from private enterprise and the public sector, it’s non-partisan and eager to engage.
At a lunch engagement, the minister was expected to set out the Government’s big thinking for the city. Instead, he talked about “transport infrastructure that enhances our way of life rather than detracts from it”, by which he clearly meant encouraging people to drive.
Both the Government’s coalition agreements specify that “decisions will be based on data and evidence, with programmes regularly assessed to see if they are delivering results”. The Committee for Auckland has a great deal of valuable research that could assist with this. But there’s no sign of evidence-based planning in any of the decisions announced to date for Auckland.
Tapping into grumpiness about pedestrian crossings is the very opposite of that.
Instead, Minister Brown is promoting road projects like new car lanes across the harbour and an east-west highway between Penrose and Onehunga. Both those projects have consistently produced negative business cases.
At the Committee for Auckland, he even ruled out any cycling and walking infrastructure across the harbour. Even though, if they ever do build extra capacity for other modes, that’s when it will be cheap and easy to add a lane for active use. To rule it out now is beyond petty.
Wouldn’t it be great if Auckland had a minister who could think past getting culture-war scalps from banning cycleways and pedestrian crossings? It would be quite good to have a prime minister who understood that, too.
After all, we are supposed to be building a better city.
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.
