The fight to control major transport policy and projects in Auckland has burst into the open again, with councillors rejecting Mayor Wayne Brown’s latest attempt to steer things more under his influence.
Councillors from the left and right broke ranks on the mayor’s bid to control Auckland Transport more directly as it forms the 10-year regional transport plan. Four out of four votes advanced by the mayor were defeated, successively.
The council, AT and the Government all want to shape the plan, which by law is framed by AT, the NZ Transport Agency and KiwiRail, and part-funded by the council, but must take Government policy into account.
The regional transport plan forms the basis of Auckland’s overall ‘bid’ for money out of the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF).
A draft before councillors, which is set to be circulated to the public next Friday for a month’s feedback, appears to anticipate ministerial antipathy to previous Auckland priorities like public transport, cycling, walking and road safety measures and advance the coalition Government’s big-ticket roading priorities instead.
One councillor described the draft as “kowtowing” to the Government and sidelining what Aucklanders really want.
Officials from AT, however, emphasised the council-controlled organisation had found it challenging to develop this plan given the Government’s change in what might be funded.
For example, the plan had had to provide more for state highways than for public transport improvement because there was now a misalignment between (government) funding and (council) priorities.
“The ranking process shows that Public Transport Investment Projects are generally the highest priority. However, these projects appear most at risk of not receiving NLTF funding.
“Walking and cycling and Local Road Infrastructure Projects have also emerged as relatively high
priorities but may have some risk depending on final allocations.”
Transport Minister Simeon Brown’s Government Policy Statement (GPS) in general turns the nationwide focus to funding roads and cars and downgrades the emphasis on public transport, cycling and walking, with implications for road safety measures and cutting emissions.
That GPS conflicts with much of what Auckland Council has been advancing, and has been urging on Auckland Transport, in the past rounds of regional transport planning. Some council critics of AT believe it was slow to get with the politicians’ programme for public transport and emissions reduction.
Wayne Brown says Simeon Brown has agreed the council should now get greater influence over this next transport plan, and at the Thursday committee meeting, the mayor sought councillors’ backing on resolutions trying to exert more control.
The council’s Transport and Infrastructure Committee was to vote to approve AT’s draft plan going out for public consultation. But late in the piece, the mayor tried to append further elements to the resolution to increase council influence where transport money would be spent.
The mayor asked that council staff work on how to gain more influence over AT’s capital spending by using existing legislation, ahead of any later law change the minister might advance.
He had just left the meeting, six hours into its agenda, when the item came up. He left it to Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson to try to explain the added points his office had distributed to her, and the councillors, just minutes earlier.
Officials said Brown wanted the points passed by the committee so that the council could approach transport funding in its parallel 10 year Long-Term Plan (the ‘LTP’ as opposed to the transport plan’s short-form ‘RLTP’) next week with certainty.
But councillors objected to the Brown amendments being included in a vote over public feedback. They also objected to the late notice and lack of explanation.
The committee did vote to support the plan going out for consultation. But Brown’s extra moves for exerting control over AT prompted some wider concerns about the Government, its GPS, the contents of AT’s draft plan, and who called the shots. All were defeated.
“These shouldn’t be part of this,” councillor Andy Baker of Franklin said. “They make no sense in terms of what we are talking about today.”
He “certainly would not be supporting” two measures aiming to have council staff work to increase control and oversight over AT’s capital spending programme in the transport plan, and linking the Long-Term Plan budgets to any greater influence the council might declare.
North Shore councillor Richard Hills said the draft plan reflecting the new Government’s policy would take the city back 10, 15 or even 20 years.
It should aim to lead, or prioritise what the city needed. Instead, it would tell residents the council had to change policy because that was what the Government wanted.
“I’m not sure we’ve ever done that under any previous government, that we’ll just bow down and say okay so we’ve changed all our priorities.
“This is a fundamental change. This will lead us going backwards on climate, backwards on safety, backwards on public transport,” he said.
“Those public transport changes and cuts and the fact we will not get money for the prioritised budgets that we’ve had on our books for a long time, and we are going to have other projects come into our community that we have not had prioritised, I think is a massive concern.”
Waitakere councillor Shane Henderson said it was not even clear the draft plan had taken the council’s formal emissions reduction targets into account. “When we passed those climate goals, that was a democratic process here that had huge support of the community. So I’m frustrated that we keep ignoring this, even to the level of planning.
“I feel like I’m disempowered, and confused again about what this is actually supposed to do.
“Is this our bid to the Government or do we have to align with their goals? Who is actually governing this city in the transport space?”
“This is about going backwards and kowtowing to Government. Where is the document about what we want to see for our city?”
Maungakiekie-Tāmaki ward councillor Josephine Bartley
He warned the council not to go into a negotiation with the Government “trying to agree with the other side as much as possible. I’m feeling we are going into a negotiation without any force.”
He voted for the draft plan to go to public consultation “just so the public can tell us for the hundredth time that they want us to actually act on our climate goals”.
Councillor Mike Lee described the draft transport plan as “mediocre” because it had not been opened to “ordinary people”. The council was under pressure to get value for money from transport and was not getting that currently.
Wayne Walker complained the plan didn’t address climate policy implications. “I don’t know what the repercussions are.”
Maungakiekie-Tāmaki ward councillor Josephine Bartley said: “This is about going backwards and kowtowing to Government. Where is the document about what we want to see for our city?”
Howick’s Maurice Williamson was nonplussed. “I’m always suspicious of red amendments that come right at the last minute. And I can’t quite work out why. I think it’s incumbent on the mayor and mayor’s office, if they want to throw this at the last minute at us to have a really good briefing note to come with it to explain.
“I’m trying to work out why we’ve been given this big blob of red, and what the implications are. It seems to be piecemeal at best and a bit of a bloody shambles at worst.”
Very sad and discouraging. NZ has lagged horribly in making Auckland more sustainable and now it all gets pushed back further. Research applied overseas has shown that building more roads does nothing to reduce congestion and may in fact exacerbate the problem. You have to address the demand end of the equation.
Su, you are absolutely right. Many Aucklanders will only seek alternatives to using their cars when it becomes too difficult to use a car – journey times too long and nowhere to park. My view is that parking availability is the key. Not much point in driving somewhere if there is nowhere to park the vehicle when you get there. Or the cost is prohibitive. The current AT plans to put in more meters and extend the hours on the meters will not work for those who are driving to a location for a few hours. In residential areas, parking should be controlled by resident permits which can only be purchased by those who live in the designated streets. Works in London and could and should work here.