Twenty obvious things for Auckland

We can easily forget that most people don’t read Transport Blog, find The High Cost of Free Parking obvious or understand that great cities are great to walk in – and lousy to drive in. Many of us have lived overseas though and we just tend to forget just how things worked over there and what is missing here. 

So here are 20 (not so) obvious things about cities, and Auckland in particular, that we should all remember.

1. Many people living in a small area makes for a better life for all. It’s more efficient, funnier and increases business, and that’s why people choose to live in big, dense cities.

2. Large roads create moats that block parts of cities from each other and we risk losing the benefits of urbanism. Many of the motorways that carved up cities overseas are now being removed, and the same applies to ports. 

3. Parking spaces not only take up valuable land but they also reduce the positive effects of urbanism. They are expensive and should be removed or charged for accordingly. 

4. All the great cities of the world are horrible places to find and pay for a car park. That’s a design feature, as they prioritise walking and public transport to cope with the demand for moving people.

5. Public transport takes cars off the road and increases, dramatically, the ability of a city to deliver people to and from work and shops, and with very limited use of land. It is far cheaper, based on both marginal and capital costs, to move people with public transport than cars. 

6. An empty rail line or bus lane is a good thing – the point is to make their lanes congestion-free so that riders can get to their destination faster.

7. Removing cars and car parks, broadening footpaths and installing shared spaces increases business (significantly) to the local merchants and makes for higher-value commercial buildings as well. People want to be in spaces that are friendly to people.

8. Apartments can be awesome places to live – and they should come in all shapes and sizes to cater for all stages of life. They are also intrinsically cheaper to build, supply with services and, with urban density, commute and shop from. You can generally survive without a car.

9. Driving to work is a horrible experience versus walking, riding and public transport – in that order. If you have other options, then take them.

10. To get people out of cars and on to cycleways and walking, we need to provide pleasant and safe environments for walkers and cyclists. It’s not enough to do big projects – we need a network from homes to school, shops and work.

11. Driving kids to school is a confidence trick – switching back to kids walking and cycling will make everybody safer by removing cars from the streets, making kids healthier and providing a critical mass of kids to react to and prevent any low probability but newsworthy predators. But we need to switch entire schools at a time to make this work. We also need to be smarter about buses for schools.

12. We make personal choices for transport that are not our own best interests, such as choosing to drive (and be traffic) rather than, say, walk. The right economics, such as variable tolls and parking charges and cross-subsidisation of public transport nudge us into making better choices and save money for everyone. 

13. New Zealand has one of the world’s most efficient domestic airline systems. Getting from the airport to Auckland city though is embarrassingly poor – great cities  offer rail or light rail. 

14. Autonomous cars are still cars and risk clogging the roads even more as they reverse commute after dropping passengers. Autonomous taxis are still taxis. Neither takes cars off the roads – people will still want their Toyotas, Fords, BMWs and Mercedes Benzes with their stuff inside, while those shared cars will need constant cleaning. 

15. Auckland has the potential to be one of the world’s great cities. We are rapidly building in population, especially downtown, and we need to invest to grow. That means increasing our debt funding, making sure the rates are set at the right level (they are amongst the lowest in New Zealand), building smart infrastructure to allow for density, removing trucks and cars by providing better alternatives and unleashing bigger buildings in and around downtown.

16. Allowing bigger buildings in your property zone will increase the value of your property – a lot. That’s free money. You may even find a developer who will buy your place for a lot of cash and give you a free apartment in their new development. 

17. In large cities the houses with backyards, as we have in the leafy inner city suburbs, belong to a few extremely wealthy families. In Auckland, the pressure is building to convert those houses to much higher-value apartments. 

18. Global warming will make beachfront property more marginal – but property overlooking the coast will always be valuable. 

19. Induced demand where, if you build it, they will come, applies not just for roads, where new roads rapidly get clogged, but also for rail, light rail and bike lanes. The latter also increase the value of surrounding property. Build the bike lanes and they get used and the evidence is clear to see. 

20. 2In short, Auckland needs to maintain or increase rates as a percentage of home value, borrow more, unleash the ability to build bigger commercial and residential buildings, invest heavily in public transport including rail, light rail and bus lanes, expand the walkable areas and cycle lanes, look to move the port within 10 years, say, increase the cost and reduce the supply of parking and work with schools and businesses to accelerate the transition to walking, cycling and public transport. And they can use an abundance of evidence from Auckland and offshore to make these decisions.  

The reason Auckland is doing so well is that the current chief executive and people that work for Auckland Council and aligned organisations as well as the private sector are working hard to achieve these goals. The central government is also largely aligned. The results, like the crowds in Britomart and Wynyard Quarter, the number of cranes downtown, the rapid rise in public transport, walking and cycling and increase in collective prosperity and delight in the inner city are clear for all to see.

However, we need a mayor and council that support growth, that support investment and that support rather than constantly undermine the largely excellent work done by Auckland Council. We need councillors who not only read their papers (and many don’t, I’m told) but who also read and understand the vast body of work and international experience in urban and transport planning. We need councillors who use, as National MP Simon O’Connor recently said to Parliament, reason, evidence and experts to inform and make decisions. We need a mayor and councillors who are positive about the future of Auckland, who are inspiring and who have the skills and experience to do the work. 

We don’t need councilors who are sports or media celebrities with no real qualifications for the role. We don’t need councillors who say no to every proposal without reading or turning up to resident events. We don’t need councillors who undermine the CEO and Auckland Council, such as those who voted against the unitary plan submission. 

It’s time to professionalise Auckland Council. Let’s make sure that there are enough high-quality independent and party-aligned candidates for all electorates. And if you are considering standing on the sort of platform outlined above – then please do so. I’m willing to help.

Lance Wiggs is the founder of Punakaiki Fund, which invests in high-growth NZ based companies. He is a member of two Return on Science investment committees and has helped over 40 companies as an independent practitioner through NZTE’s Better by Capital program. He writes at Lancewiggs.com

Tune into NBR Radio’s Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson on Sunday morning, for analysis and feature-length interviews.