Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, celebrating his election win in 2022. Photo / Jed Bradley
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, celebrating his election win in 2022. Photo / Jed Bradley
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.
Anyone who tries to delay this project, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown warned councillors in a meeting on March 2023, will be “threatened within an inch of their life”.
There he was, the gruff, no-nonsense mayor we all love to love. A joke, to be sure, but themessage was plain: Get out of my way, you idiots, I’ve got a city to fix.
“I think this is a damn good thing,” he added. “I think it’s bloody good.”
It was the Victoria Street makeover known as Te Hā Noa. The same project he’s now raging against, on social media and in a front-page story yesterday.
Two years ago, he was such a fan he basically strong-armed its opponents into submission. What’s going on?
“Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown wants to halt further work on a major city centre project costing tens of millions of dollars,” said the Herald story yesterday.
He said he still supports it, which is not the impression he gives in the story or on social media.
He told me he wants a delay only on one part of it.
I asked: “But isn’t that part already finished?”
“It was only done this month,” he said.
So, yes, he wants to stop something that’s already happened. Let’s put some context into this.
Te Hā Noa is a street upgrade project that will help make the Midtown precinct fit for purpose when thousands of people start using the City Rail Link (CRL) station next year.
Wider walkways, lanes for cycling and scootering, lots of seating, lots of big trees and other planting. And traffic lanes too.
Auckland Council staff enjoying a newly opened section of Te Hā Noa, on Victoria St. Photo / Jay Farnsworth
Very like the wonderfully upgraded Quay St, and right in the middle of the city.
As Brown told councillors in 2023, most of the cost would be borne by the businesses and residents of the central city, through the targeted rate they pay for just this sort of thing.
The mayor’s rant this week comes just a few days after Transport Minister Chris Bishop told a business crowd that “in order to properly unlock economic growth in Auckland”, the city needs to be “compact, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly”. Exactly what Te Hā Noa is designed to enhance.
Brown is on a different crusade. He said on Facebook, “We’ve spent all this money and nobody knows what it’s for!”
Well, he does, because the council keeps getting reports on it.
Residential population growth is probably the key to revitalising the area and the mayor not only agrees, he advocates strongly for it. But those residents, like office and shop workers, students and shoppers, need open spaces with trees, for cooling, shade, biodiversity, and birdlife.
And who doesn’t understand the urgent need to separate scooters from pedestrians?
Brown’s particular objection is – guess what? – to a two-lane cycleway along the front of Sky City and the TVNZ block one street over.
It’s been built on the cheap, unlike the rest of Te Hā Noa, with concrete dividers and a bit of paint, and it was done during scheduled maintenance, which further reduced the cost. And, as noted, it’s finished. Why complain now?
If Brown poked his nose around the corner into Hobson St, he would see Sky City’s new convention centre nearing completion, with wide pedestrian areas, trees and other planting, not dissimilar to Te Hā Noa.
On Facebook, he asks in frustration: “Who is supposed to stand here, why is there a rise here, is it for a bus, is it a cycleway, what’s supposed to happen here, are people supposed to walk here, it’s got these walking things, where does it go to?”
Saints preserve us. The bus stop, cycleway and footpaths he’s talking about share a common design with many other bike lanes and bus stops around the city. Most people manage, especially because there are those “walking things”. You might know them as the white lines of pedestrian crossings.
Brown’s catchcry is that Auckland transport shouldn’t waste money on “dumb stuff the public don’t want”. But consultation on this “stuff” showed 79% support.
In case you’re wondering, Te Hā Noa isn’t part of a plot to ban cars.
As the project documents say, a key focus is “to maintain traffic flow in the east-west direction and ensure that access to properties, goods and services delivery can continue to be undertaken effectively”.
And as council official Jenny Larking told the Herald, Mayoral Drive will remain a car-focused route across the city centre and Wellesley St will be the main cross-town bus route. Everybody’s being looked after.
I suppose you can explain the mayor’s irritation in a number of ways. He changed his mind? He forgot that he personally made it happen? He’s been bewitched by a coven of cynical advisers? He’s parodying himself? It’s election time and this is how it’s going to be?
