Most people want a people-friendly city
With many of Auckland's political and bureaucratic leaders bowing down to vocal minorities and consistently failing to reallocate space to people in our city, recent news overseas has prompted me to point out something important.
It is extremely popular to make car-dominated cities nicer, by freeing up space for people.
From Paris, with love
Yesterday, Parisians voted to pedestrianise 500 (more) streets in their city, replacing 10,000 car parks, roads, and grey asphalt with walking, cycling, and the green of vegetation. Most significantly, this passed with 66% approval.
In the years since 2020's sudden Covid disruption, Paris, unlike Auckland, has accelerated its existing plans to shift away from driving as the default mode, and toward sustainability, clean air, and a more people-friendly city.
It was a paradigm shift built off previous decades of work, gifting residents and visitors a city which thrums with the sound of people, and not vehicles.
This didn't come out of nowhere. It's been initiated and maintained by the courage of the city's leadership, notably its Mayor Anne Hidalgo. Like any change on a grand scale, of course it takes time and effort to transform a busy urban environment, but when done with vision and purpose, it quickly leads to a better city for all.
Across the ditch, a six-time Mayor keeps on keeping on
Closer to home, the City of Sydney has seen similar change over the last few decades. Lord Mayor of Sydney since 2004, Clover Moore, has consistently been re-elected on a platform of changing streets from prioritising cars, to people.
This hasn't been an easy journey, faced with hostile state governments, and some public resistance or outright opposition to things like making it easier to cycle. But persistence has paid off, with more cycling than ever, and transformational projects like Sydney Light Rail have changed not only the city but hearts and minds, widening the horizon of possibility and imagination.
The city that never sleeps is constantly awake to potential
Backed by the Mayor at the time, Michael Bloomberg, in the 2010s transport czar Janette Sadik-Khan championed a high profile and successful transformation of New York City's streets, including transforming Times Square from a busy, noisy, dirty traffic sewer into a bright and welcoming zone for people.
In particular, the expansion of bike lanes along with the arrival of bike-share saw a dramatic rise in cycling, with support growing even further after changes bedded in.
“There’s no question having a strong leader does help in establishing that vision, and supporting change when the status quo blowback begins,” she said. “But in New York we fundamentally rewrote the operating code of the streets, not with mega-projects and billions of dollars, but by adapting the space that was already there.
“That’s a really important lesson in many, many cities: you don’t have to have the most visionary mayor, you don’t have to have a billion-dollar budget, you don’t have to have years and years of modelling. Just by adapting the space that’s there you can make a huge difference.
More recently, implementation of congestion charging in a major swathe of Manhattan has been extremely effective at reducing traffic, while also making public transport and cycling better... and reducing the amount of honking, for a much more stress-free metropolis overall.
Things are looking up, down South!
These waves of change are washing on our shores as well. As Jessica de Heij noted last year, Dunedin's George Street has been upgraded to be more pedestrian-friendly, and, Invercargill's city centre is a more people-focused place.
Despite virulent vocal opposition from some in Dunedin, the previous Mayor Aaron Hawkins pushed ahead with plans to transform George Street. Now that the work is completed, some of the most vocal opponents have changed their tune, now vocally supporting the streetscape changes. Surprise!
(How many of those so confidently and loudly opposing Wellington's Golden mile upgrade, will extol its virtues once done?)
Auckland's good at this too... so why do our leaders drag their feet?
Tāmaki Makaurau is full of great public places that drew headlines in the making, but have been wild successes once finished and full of people. Time after time, the spaces we change in Auckland demonstrate that Aucklanders love places for people, and they love alternatives to getting around by car.
Despite the still disconnected bike network, cycling continues to grow across the city, by leaps and bounds wherever improvements happen. And pedestrianising public places helps businesses boom.
So why aren't we doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on this proven recipe for success?
How many times do we have to consult on pedestrianising Queen Street or High Street, before it actually happens? How many post-construction successes do we need to see?
How many 'open street' events do we need to hold, to prove this works well enough to run on a routine basis, every weekend and/or all summer long?
How many studies do we need, showing yet again that bike lanes, pedestrianisation, and reducing traffic leads to more money for businesses, less congestion, healthier environments, happier citizens, and a better city for people?
How many other cities do we need to see change, to believe we can do it ourselves?
Next time you travel around the City Centre, or any of Auckland's town centres in this city-of-villages – ask yourself ,which parts are busiest with people?
On your journey to and from work, school, shopping, leisure – ask yourself which streets you'd most like to live on?
Odds are, in both cases you'll land on our pedestrianised squares and residential streets with little through-traffic. It's a no-brainer.
Then ask yourself – what's stopping us from sharing the love and changing more places to match the vibe?
From where I sit, it mostly looks like a lack of confident and brave leadership. Something to ponder, with local elections coming up.
Newmarket Broadway is desperately calling out for pedestrianisation. It’s dying now with the focus on the Westfield Mall and plenty of empty shops. The only way to recover it from getting any worse is to divert the traffic around the outside and make the main street pedestrian only. Would be a fantastic space for restaurants and bars and become a real destination. But good luck getting the shop owners to understand that getting rid of the cars is going to be better than what they have now.