Transforming transport for climate is key to reducing emissions in Auckland

Thursday, 17 December 2020

All Aboard! feels investment in Tāmaki Makaurau is biased away from active modes of transport (File photo).

OPINION: Cities are critical in the global effort to tackle climate change. On Friday, the climate-focused megacity organisation C40 announced that 54 of the world’s largest cities are on track to meet their obligations. These cities show what Auckland can achieve with the same commitment.

Auckland has been a C40 member since 2015; admitted – despite our smaller size – on the basis that we would be an “Innovator City”.

Membership gives us access to knowledge useful for transforming Auckland into a healthy, safe, equitable, and low emission city. Rich with opportunities, where everyone’s needs are easy to access.

Waiheke Island has got six new fully electric buses to add to its fleet, with more coming over the next 12 years.(video from October 2020)

Yet we’re starved for serious action.

* Auckland's congestion and climate solution is simple: Drive and pollute less

* More must be done so younger Māori see themselves represented by Auckland leadership

Auckland has a program of more than $30 billion for transport over the next 10 years (File photo).

Two sectors hold Auckland back: transport and planning. Investment biased away from active modes and public transport, and towards roads and sprawl, is the major reason we drive too much. Compact quality urban regeneration can amplify the process of transport decarbonisation, yet development often meets unnecessary barriers.

Auckland has a program of more than $30 billion for transport over the next 10 years, and the next six months are critical if we’re to climb out of the list of “cities that didn’t care”. Versions of Auckland’s major transport plans – the Regional Land Transport Plan and the Auckland Transport Alignment Project – will soon be published for public consultation. The current drafts are not aligned with Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri, and lack a strategy to resolve Auckland’s challenges.

No ambition and no action is a crime against our tamariki (children). It reinforces a polluting system that is inequitable and fails to uphold environmental protections for future generations in Te Tiriti.

All Aboard! has presented a well-evidenced alternative. But it requires a complete shift in policy.

It’ll involve low traffic neighbourhoods with fewer cars, so streets can again become places accessible for all people to connect. Cycling superhighways to open up the whole city, allowing people to swap their car for an e-bike. Vibrant parks and squares instead of parking lots. Quality apartments flanking healthy, tree-lined boulevards, where light rail and buses can move freely of traffic, and people on foot and bikes are safe. And encourages future leadership, the voice of rangatahi.

All Aboard’s transport alternative involves low traffic neighbourhoods with fewer cars, so streets can again become places accessible for all people to connect (File photo).

Just as important is what it won’t involve: costly kerb moving and property purchasing just to try to add space. We can do this through repurposing the infrastructure we have.

Mayor Phil Goff and Auckland Transport (AT) board chairwoman Adrienne Young Cooper must challenge tired fallacies and assert new understanding: sprawl is a road to nowhere. Auckland Council CEO Jim Stabback needs to oversee a swift review of the Auckland Development Strategy, ensuring it enables Auckland to become a genuinely compact city.

Every project overseen by AT CEO Shane Ellison must encourage people to drive less and travel sustainably – using public transport, walking and cycling.

Transport minister Michael Wood and Housing and Urban Development minister Megan Woods have this chance to bring responsible climate stewardship to the NZ Upgrade and Economic Recovery packages, and to shift the Supporting Growth Programme to 100 per cent urban regeneration. CEO Nicole Rosie needs to focus Waka Kotahi on investing in climate-ready projects that encourage modeshift. She’ll need support from her board, led by chairman Sir Brian Roche, to focus on achieving these goals.

We can claim our place at the C40 success table. Arriving there via a process that is creative, engaging, equitable, and honours Te Tiriti. But we must act now, to achieve a thriving and resilient Tāmaki Makaurau that we all deserve!

Nicholas Lee is a spokesman for the All Aboard! Campaign, an alliance of volunteer organisations who recognise that transforming transport for climate is the key to reducing emissions in Tāmaki Makaurau.