Shifting Sands

In our first summer in New Zealand we rode to the far north and then back down the famous Ninety Mile Beach. There is a six-hour window each day to safely traverse the beach before the tide comes in. Timing is everything.

I was reminded of this when looking at all the posts about the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group (APPCG) meeting in the UK yesterday - maybe one day we'll have such a thing in New Zealand! At the start of my career in transport planning in the mid-1990s I was aware of only one cycling politician, former transport minister Sir George Young, 'the Bicycling Baronet'. Fast forward a decade or so and I was sitting having breakfast with him at a hotel in the Hague, on an APPCG trip to look at Bike-Rail infrastructure, and how the Dutch had embraced the first and final leg as a way to increase public transport use. The transport minister had given Cycling England some money for bike-rail integration and we were on a learning trip hosted by experts from the Dutch rail company. We were also taking a look around at all the cycle routes, a mix of simple traffic management restrictions and speed limits, painted cycle lanes, help to cross the road at major intersections, and then cycle tracks along the main arterials.

One thing Sir George astutely observed was that the 'terms of trade' were shifted, i.e. there were so many pedestrians and cyclists compared to cars in the city centre that the majority users dictated the behaviour of the rest. It's hard to see a parallel situation in Auckland but the reduction to two-lanes of traffic in Lower Queen St and the associated vehicle restrictions and greening of the corridor with street trees has altered pedestrian behaviour, making it easy to cross the road, and we now see a lot more two-wheeled traffic on the shared path that weaves through the area. Small steps, but a vision of what is also to come to Victoria St when our new mid-town rail station opens in 2026. Some people are even considering space for outdoor seating and dining - heaven forbid, people coming to the city centre to enjoy themselves when they should be angrily driving around looking for a car park!

One of the great achievements of the APPCG, particularly Lord Berkley, was to embed cycling into the 2015 Infrastructure Act that set out some long-term investment priorities for the nation. This was an attempt to overcome the 'stop-start' funding cycle that occurs with changes in government. Cycling UK and the APPCG were also instrumental in ensuring that cycle infrastructure was included in the legal framework for constructing the HS2 rail line (which also involves building many miles of new roads), although I spent a good deal of my last two years in England working with the Department for Transport sponsors trying to make the government and HS2 honour that commitment, and to apply the latest design standards!

New Zealand is plagued by the three-year political cycle, and in Auckland we also have local body elections a year before the general election, so really only two years with any semblance of stability. It is not an environment for successful long-term planning and delivery, as noted by the former head of the City Rail Link. Unfortunately for cycling in the city, the tide is sweeping in, with the double whammy of local and national political opposition and sweeping funding cuts for all things except new roads. Hopefully we got the timing right, and that enough things are 'committed' or in construction to keep momentum, but as I've been brutally reminded this week, even things we're in the middle of building can be stopped when a few rogue individuals and sympathetic staff are willing to over-ride our systems. It's funny how when money is tight, the cheapest and most universally accessible modes of transport are regarded as 'nice to have' and the most expensive, most damaging, most hazardous and least efficient mode is 'essential'.

I don't think I'll be invited to discuss the merits of the first and final leg with our current transport minister any time soon, but tides have a habit of going in and out at regular intervals, and people in Auckland are walking, cycling and taking public transport in ever greater numbers each month.