Simon Wilson
We’re at peak car so change is inevitable — but let’s embrace it
One afternoon late last year I had a meeting with a man in downtown Auckland. He was late. Then he rang to ask, where was he supposed to park? He said he had been driving round and round and couldn’t find a park.
Where did you come from? I asked him. Ponsonby, he said.
It’s true, Aucklanders don’t want to get out of their cars. Well, many of them. My friend could have got on the Link bus, and kept working all the way to the meeting. He gets a gazillion emails a day, he could have used the time, and done his blood pressure a favour.
He could have called a cab or an Uber and done the same thing. He could have grabbed a yellow and black Onzo bike and ridden down the hill. Done his heart a favour that way, and enjoyed the day. It hadn’t occurred to him to do any of those things.
But the thing that stuffed up the transport choice he did make wasn’t bike lanes or buses, the things some critics like to blame. It was other private motor vehicles. There were too many cars downtown, as there always are, because too many people like him had driven in when they didn’t need to.
It doesn’t take much to recognise that the solution — the only solution, for a growing population with limited space in which to grow — is to make the alternatives to private motor vehicles more attractive. Public transport that’s frequent, reliable, pleasant, safe and affordable; cycling that’s safe; walking that’s prioritised. And at the same time, ratcheting up the disincentives to driving: higher parking fees, perhaps a congestion charge.
Some of these things are well under way now. Pedestrians on Queen St never have to wait longer than 65 seconds for a cross signal; the average is 27 seconds. The big painted dots on Shortland St and lower Federal St carry a powerful message to all road users: something new’s going on here, so take care. Nobody should assume they have right of way. There are more bike lanes, more shared spaces, lower driving speeds. Public transport has got vastly better. And there’s lots more to come.
The strategy is not to ban cars. It is to keep the carriageways at least moderately functional for the many people who, for all sorts of reasons, really do need to drive. And to make the alternatives a good choice, not a miserable necessity.
This isn’t happening because our politicians and council bureaucrats have gone mad. It is, now, nothing more than the orthodox transport strategy for cities all over the world. It has economic, health and climate benefits, but apart from all that, there is no other option. You can add more motorway lanes, but that won’t help my Ponsonby friend or anyone else wanting to get all the way into town. Space for urban transport is relatively