What’s next for ‘pass the parking strategy’?
ANALYSIS: Away from public scrutiny, another move has been made in the long-running game of ‘‘pass the Auckland parking strategy’’.
Elements of it date back to 2009, before Auckland Council was formed. Much of it has its roots in the 2015 version, before the latest ‘‘hot potato’’ draft iteration popped out in 2022.
The ideas aren’t rocket science, in a world where climate change demands different ways of using some of the public space that currently gives priority to vehicles.
Kerbside parking on arterial roads would more readily give way to more sustainable transport, such as lanes for buses or cycles.
Vast tracts of public land provided free as park and rides would incur a small daily charge.
However the idea of charging for all park and ride spaces, first proposed in 2009, has been dropped, just when its time – climatically and financially – seemed to have arrived.
Consultation found strong public opposition to the idea, at least according to a brief summary presentation by Auckland Transport.
Now the fiscal-versus-fumes compromise seems to be a suggestion of ‘‘premium’’ spaces, a kind of paid upgrade to business class parking, on publicly owned asphalt.
Consultation found support for finding new uses for kerbside parking on critical transport routes, but according to AT, those favoured new uses included a mix of additional traffic lanes or bus lanes, with less support for cycle lanes.
The consultation was embarked on after a clumsy public release of the draft in 2021 by AT.
It inflamed public and some political reaction, with lots of finger-pointing at AT, a council agency tasked with doing what its political ‘‘owners’’ direct.
Even with a commitment to seeking public input, the vote to put the draft strategy out for consultation was a narrow 13-10 affair.
A year on, with the parking strategy – now called Room to Move – AT is now navigating a strategic fog, with an acting chairman and a just-installed fixed-term chief executive.
They are trying to weigh up the pre-election council direction that emissions reduction was the top priority, and less-clear direction from the current council, that it should do what it can with the funding available. Which is being reduced.
The mixed message, which is being sent from a closed-door councillor workshop, may not give them the clear support they need.
Without that, the board may be free to make up its own mind about the nuts and bolts of building a future that is less about motoring.
If AT gets it ‘‘wrong’’ in anyone’s view, expect some politicians to be the first to point the finger, undermining public confidence and slowing momentum.
Semantics aside, it is not AT’s parking strategy, it is the council’s, with AT the agency tasked to make it happen.
On the one hand, it can be argued that it’s good the muchdebated parking strategy is finally heading to sign-off.
On the other, we don’t know the thoughts of Auckland councillors and the mayor on its latest iteration, and to what extent those views will be reflected in the strategy due to be signed off by AT’s board in May.