Janette Sadik-Khan, one of the worlds leading experts on urban design, was in Auckland last week. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
OPINION
Three sets of numbers to conjure with. The first: New York, city of cars, has three million more people than the whole of New Zealand, but a third fewer traffic deaths.
The second set: we’re heading for 10 billion people on this planet by the year 2050.
And, the third: 69 per cent of urban New Zealanders say they are “highly supportive” of cycling in their community and 60 per cent want more cycleways.
The traffic-death numbers come courtesy of the former Commissioner of Transportation in New York, Janette Sadik-Khan, who was in New Zealand last month. She’s the person who spearheaded the introduction of Vision Zero to the city in 2014, the pedestrianisation of Times Square and the rollout of a thousand kilometres of cycleways.
Result: deaths and serious injuries down. Another result: 600,000 people a day now ride a bike in New York. That’s more than drive on the busiest highways. And New York’s not alone in this: Sadik-Khan told a packed room in the Aotea Centre that in both London and Paris more people ride a bike than drive.
The second number – the still-growing population of the planet – is presented in memory of Rod Oram, champion advocate of climate action, brilliant business journalist and dedicated cyclist, who died of a heart attack last month.
The UN predicts there will be 9.8 billion of us within 35 years and Oram used to say the question that motivated him in all his work was: “How will 10 billion people live well and in the right relationship with the Earth?”
His answer hinged on this: ‘’We, along with the rest of humankind, must figure out how to achieve an utterly unprecedented speed of change, scale of change and complexity of change. Everything, everywhere, all at once.”
For Oram, it wasn’t just a movie, it was real. He was deeply knowledgeable about business, farming and the climate and enthusiastic about the opportunities he saw all around us. And he was devoted to plain-speaking explanations of the science and the economics.
He knew the task was urgent and despaired often at the intransigence and timidity that motivate so many politicians and business leaders. But he took every chance he could to engage in fruitful debate, to share what he knew, and he did it with unfailing patience and good humour.
Rod Oram’s life and work will be publicly celebrated this Friday, at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell, starting at 11am. One or two cyclists will be there.
The third set of numbers, about cycling, comes from an annual survey carried out by the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi. The 2023 data has just been released.
Also just released: a report from Auckland Council and the research agency Koi Tū, which is headed by Sir Peter Gluckman, the former Chief Science Adviser to Prime Minister Sir John Key.
A representative sample of Aucklanders was asked to rate the value of various transport initiatives. Top of the list: a better rail network, safer and easier walking and more frequent buses. At the bottom: more motorway lanes.
Perhaps you’re spluttering into your cornflakes. But this is strong evidence of public support for safer streets, much better public transport and a less car-dependent future. Support for a better rail network suggests support for light rail, although presumably not if it’s like the last Government’s super-expensive version.
These things have caused both Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown to splutter into their own cornflakes, but for the mayor at least there’s good news from overseas. Mayors who embrace safer streets programmes and vigorously promote cycling get re-elected.
Examples include Anne Hidalgo in Paris, Sadiq Khan in London, Beppe Sala in Milan, Valerie Plante in Montreal and Clover Moore in Sydney. There are many more.
Sadik-Khan calls the opposition to all this the “bikelash”. It’s loud and angry and it gets a lot of attention. But, she suggests, it’s probably a sign the city is doing something right.
Because there’s a “bikelash paradox”: despite the rage, people quite like the idea their kids might be able to walk or ride to school. Look forward to shopping on streets that are not primarily thoroughfares, but are destinations. Refuse to accept that the road toll is an inevitable consequence of modern life.
“Our job,” said Sadik-Khan, “isn’t to create a slightly less dysfunctional version of the city we have today. It’s to act as agents of the city we want to see, in five, 10, 20 years. Not just managing challenges, but innovating and taking action to transcend them.”
The “15-minute city” is a part of that. It’s not a plot to trap people in their homes, as conspiracists love to say. Sadik-Khan called it “a city with a density of destinations so that more of life’s activities can be done within a 15-minute walk”.
Of course, you can leave your neighbourhood. But how good to live in “a place where you don’t have to get in a car for everything. You have a choice for how you get around”.
The respondents to the Transport Agency survey on cycling and walking - urban New Zealanders - wanted that. But 41 per cent of them said the way people drive makes them feel it’s unsafe to ride a bike. And while 73 per cent of cyclists agreed that cycling is an easy and efficient way to get around, it was 53 per cent among all respondents.
Which brings us back to the Koi Tū report. Auckland Council asked the agency last year to conduct a “deliberative democracy forum” to look at the future of transport in the city.
In a deliberative democracy process, a randomly chosen but demographically representative group of people are brought together to respond to a question. They hear from experts, they debate and they attempt to reach conclusions. The aim is to merge democratic principles with informed decision-making.
In this case, nearly 100 people were asked to consider: “What changes do you think are needed to ensure that everyone can get around Auckland efficiently, affordably, safely and sustainably, well into the future?”
The participants were surveyed on their views of 15 options before the process and again afterwards (see table).
As noted above, a better rail network, safer walking and more buses were most strongly supported, and not only at the start but even more so at the end. Their scores were in the range of 8.9 to 9.1 out of 10.
As for more motorway lanes, it was the only option that became less popular during the process, dropping from 4.2 to 3.8.
The options where support grew the most were: more housing near town centres and transport hubs (up 2.3 to 8.4), on-street parking fees (up 2.2 to 6.2), prevent greenfield development (up 2.1 to 7.3) and time-of-use charges (up 2.1 to 5.9).
Other options to enjoy strong support at the end included: safe and connected bike paths (8.3), all-day bus lanes (7.7), e-bike subsidies (7.1) and car-sharing subsidies (7).
The group supported denser housing but not urban sprawl. The value of good alternatives to driving seems well understood. There was scepticism about adding to the cost of driving, for example with tolls or parking fees, but some of the group was open to arguments in favour.
The Koi Tū report will be presented to council on Thursday. Sadly, its findings are nowhere reflected in the draft of the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport published last month by Simeon Brown.
Funding for motorways is up. Funding for public transport is down, except for a couple of big projects. And what remains of funding for cycleways is being deliberately throttled with red tape.
This goes to a central question in Rod Oram’s approach to climate action. How far does logic, knowledge, patience and decency get us? Oram was widely praised, but what he wanted was to be more widely listened to.
Just last week the Government appointed Gluckman to chair two new advisory panels, one on the science sector and the other on universities. Perhaps the two ministers involved, Judith Collins and Penny Simmonds, could have a word with Brown about the value of Gluckman’s work.
After all, their Government has explicitly committed itself to evidence-based decision-making.
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.
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