Spoke put in Harbour Bridge cycle rides
Opinion: Aucklanders’ achievement in passing the 90 per cent milestone for vaccination against Covid-19 might be one of the city’s bigger moments of 2021.
Sceptics doubted it could be done, and doubted especially whether the south could be engaged in sufficient numbers.
The south, notably the Pasifika and Māori communities, showed a stunning ‘‘can do’’ spirit, embracing vaccination with an energy that remains a shining example.
Elsewhere, ‘‘can do’’ has not been so evident. Like the ability to organise a few summer Sunday cycle rides over the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
With just hours’ notice, a ‘‘storming’’ over the bridge by cycling advocates mid-year was carried out safely, without massive disruption – though it was illegal.
Soon after, the scrapping of the Government’s short-lived plan to build a $785 million cycling and walking bridge was accompanied by a ministerial call for a summer trial schedule of ride-overs.
Waka Kotahi said it was too short a timeframe, and might be possible the following summer, 2022 into 2023.
In the world of Waka Kotahi, this may seem logical. But from the outside, it looks like another pro-cycling idea has been fed through the in-house
Complicator, and come up with a No.
It is hard to imagine a summer when a bridge ride-over would have been more welcomed – with borders open, but travel not entirely worry-free.
A chance to ride the bridge on the odd summer Sunday would have built on the uptake of cycling, especially among family bubbles that formed during Covid19 lockdown.
Those bubble walks on quiet neighbourhood streets were another sign of ‘‘can do’’ adaptation by Aucklanders, turning curtailed opportunities into enjoyable experiences.
It comes also as we edge further into a decade in which Aucklanders need to get out of their cars in order to meet a change-driven need to achieve a 64 per cent cut in transport emissions.
‘‘We need to take the time to investigate and get right the safe and effective access to and from the bridge, as well as ways to cover the significant costs involved,’’ said Waka Kotahi.
That such a high-profile promotion of emission-free transport and recreation could evaporate with barely a ripple, shows that the grassroots ‘‘can do’’ attitude of the 90 per cent has not trickled upwards.
The agency never proactively explained why it’ll take another year to let people occasionally cycle over the harbour bridge, it emerged in a session before Parliament’s Transport and Infrastructure Committee.
Politicians of all types have finished for the year, and something that might have given a bit of profile to Auckland at a time when it is desperate to attract visitors has simply evaporated for the time being.
It’s not that Auckland is short of can do. We can do $4.5 billion worth of City Rail Link tunnels, and a light rail proposal at double or triple the price is probably also in the bag already.
It is the simpler stuff that is harder. Under pressure from Auckland Transport, Waka
Kotahi almost had a quickie plan finalised to turn existing motorway shoulders into continuous bus lanes.
A project it thought it could have rolled out a couple of years ago went into the Complicator and has become a pop-up busway – which of course will be better, but is taking years longer with the ‘‘lost opportunity cost’’ quietly ignored.
‘‘Can do’’ will be in hot demand in 2022, as Auckland, finally – hopefully – gets serious about shifting travel habits out of private cars.
The quick and nimble ideas need to be out of the starting blocks swiftly.
Aucklanders, now past the 90 per cent double-jabbed threshold, will face the challenge of doing it all again for a third Covid-19 booster vaccination. Past performance suggests that is a safe bet to end up on the next ‘‘can do’’ achievement list.