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By Peter M, on May 8th, 2012 Yes, the title of this post sounds like an oxymoron. Street signs are often there to make streets safer – here’s a give way sign, a speed limit, a warning about a school, a particularly sharp bend, the list goes on. But does all this signage actually make us safer, or does it turn drivers into mindless idiots who forget to actually look at what’s going on because they’re only focusing on the signage or the traffic signals?
An interesting article (yes I know it’s from 2009, but it’s still relevant) picks up on this issue:
[Dr Gerald] Wilde theorizes — in something he calls “risk homeostasis” — that everyone has his or her own fixed level of acceptable risk. When the level of risk in a part of the individual’s life changes, there will be a corresponding rise or fall in risk elsewhere to bring the overall risk back to that individual’s equilibrium. Wilde argues that the same is true of larger human systems, like a population of drivers. He argues that street signs designed to make us safer actually make us drive more carelessly by sort of nanny-ing us into complacency.
A new traffic movement called “naked streets,” being practiced in the city of Drachten in the Netherlands seeks to change that. The small city spearheaded the change of 20 four-way intersections into traffic circles with no signage. The net result? One intersection went from between two and four people dying each year to zero people dying since 2003. In another, the removal of traffic lights has resulted in accidents falling from thirty-six in the four years before it was introduced to two in the next two years. Not only that but they’ve been more efficient — thanks to overall increases in efficiency from traffic circles — with the average time for each vehicle to cross the junction falling from 50 seconds to 30 seconds, despite a rise in the volume of traffic. Why? Because people are paying attention to traffic, they’re going slower and they’re communicating with each other.
Owen Paterson, the Dutch Transport Minister, visited Drachten to see the implementation in action. “The idea is to create space where there is mild anxiety among everyone so they all behave cautiously. No one thunders along at 30mph on a high street thinking that they have priority.” Mr Paterson said that putting up more speed limit signs and painting more lines on the road had failed to make streets safer. “Instead of the State laying down the rules, we need to give responsibility back to road users. It’s about creating an environment where it just doesn’t feel right to drive faster than 20mph.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
I think there’s a lot of validity to the argument being put forward here, and it explains why shared spaces – which in theory should be horrifically dangerous – are actually very safe. In fact the most dangerous intersections in Auckland often tend to be those which are managed to the highest extent – such as the big giant one near Botany town centre.
Maybe it’s time for the traffic engineers to let us think for ourselves?
By Peter M, on May 3rd, 2012 Looks like Steven Joyce and Gerry Brownlee may have a long-lost cousin who became mayor of Toronto (click for the video):
And the accompanying article:
Rob Ford has dismissed a report that suggests a reduction in speed limits to protect pedestrians and cyclist in Toronto as “nuts.”
Asked if the city will drop speed limits, as suggested earlier this week by the city’s chief medical officer of health Ford told reporters on Friday the idea is “nuts, nuts, nuts, nuts. No.”
The report — Road to Health: Improving Walking and Cycling in Toronto — released by Dr. David McKeown recommends speed limits be reduced by as much as 20 km/h, saying the slower speed limits will protect pedestrians and cyclists.
If accepted the speed limit on Lakeshore Boulevard might be reduced to 40 km/h. On most residential streets traffic would be reduced to about 30 km/h.
Ford, who has many times referred to what he calls the ‘war on the car’ in Toronto, said the proposal is “absolutely ridiculous.”
The mayor was also asked about a vote this week by Metrolinx, the provincial transportation agency, which gave the green light to four light rail projects on Toronto’s streets.
Ford, whose vision of subways was soundly defeated by city council, said he’s not giving up.
“I’m not going to stop fighting for subways. That’s what the people want. That’s what we’ll continue to do.”
The mayor also said a proposal for road tolls to pay for public transportation projects being floated by some on city councillor is not going to survive.
“I’m totally, 100 per cent opposed to toll roads. If they want to float it — I’m going to sink it.”
The mayor also dismissed a new group that has emerged from within city council which describes itself as a centrist group.
Ford said contemptuously that there’s “no middle” at city hall. City councillors, he said, are on “One (side) or the other.”
But Ford said although they may make proposals for the city agenda, he remains in charge.
“I encourage them to meet and come and talk to me – and as you guys know I’m meeting with the councillors, as many as I can — and getting their input and telling [them] the direction I want to take the city.”
Ford made the comments during a news conference to show off a new iPhone app which will allow residents to easily report vandalism, graffiti and potholes.
About time we dropped the speed limit on all non-arterial roads in Auckland to 30 or 40 kph I think.
By Peter M, on May 2nd, 2012 Another great video from Streetfilms:
Tom Radulovich, the executive director of the local non-profit Livable City, describes the recent livable streets achievements in San Francisco as “tactical urbanism” — using low-cost materials like paint and bollards to reclaim street space.
That willingness to experiment was a big reason that the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) gave its 2012 Sustainable Transport Award to San Francisco (an honor shared with Medellín, Colombia). In this Streetfilm we profile the innovations that earned SF recognition from ITDP.
Perhaps the city’s most exciting new development has been the parklet program, which converts parking spaces into public space complete with tables, chairs, art, and greenery. These mini-parks are adopted and paid for by local businesses, but they remain public space. The concept has its roots in the PARK(ing) Day phenomenon started by the SF-based Rebar Group in 2005.
San Francisco has also seen an impressive 71 percent increase in bicycling in the past five years, despite being under a court injunction that prohibited bicycle improvements for most of that time. The city aims to have 20 percent of trips by bike by 2020. Sunday Streets, San Francisco’s version of Ciclovia, has also drawn huge numbers of participants and continues to expand.
The city has also taken the lead on innovative parking management with the SFPark program, which uses new technology to help manage public parking in several pilot neighborhoods. It aims to make it easier to find a parking spot by adjusting prices according to demand, helping to reduce pollution, traffic, and frustrations for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.
So many lessons for Auckland there.
By Peter M, on April 3rd, 2012 This is an excellent, if rather lengthy, video by Streetfilms about the impact of automobiles on our cities:
A description:
For more than 100 years New York City government policy has prioritized the needs of the automobile over the needs of any other mode of transport. Working under the faulty assumption that more car traffic would improve business, planners and engineers have systematically made our streets more dangerous and less livable. As a result, even the idea that a street could truly be a “place” – a shared space for human interaction and play – has been almost completely destroyed.
During his decade long effort to understand and improve the streets of New York City, entrepreneur and livable streets advocate Mark Gorton has gathered together a compelling set of examples of how transportation policy impacts the quality of our daily lives. Mark is regularly invited to speak in public about these issues.
In his current presentation “Rethinking the Automobile” Mark explores the history of autocentric planning and considers how New York and other cities can change. Filled with ample video footage of dozens of Streetfilms, we’ve worked with Mark to create a version of the presentation here.
As the founder of Streetfilms, Streetsblog, OpenPlans, and the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign, Gorton has been on the front lines of the battle to transform New York’s streets. But Mark is not done fighting. He contends that the recent improvements that have been implemented in New York should only be considered as the “tip of the iceberg” and that a truly comprehensive set of changes are still necessary.
Compulsory viewing for traffic engineers methinks.
By Stu Donovan, on March 28th, 2012 This is the first of what I hope will be a series of short posts on good/bad transport behaviour. The idea is that by “naming” people/companies that deliver good transport outcomes, and “shaming” those that perform poorly, we can create a semblance of public pressure for businesses to pull up their transport socks.
From the outset I should say that these posts are necessarily subjective and somewhat banal: They revolve around me and my mixed experiences in Auckland. But if you have a particularly good/bad transport experience of your own then please email me at stu.donovan-at-gmail.com and I’ll consider your experience for inclusion in future award ceremonies.
Without further ado, my prize for best transport experience of the week goes to:
Big Brands Online – this website sells home appliances and provides free delivery with all purchases. No need to leave home, just click your way to a new fridge and sit back as their delivery trucks bring home the bacon within 1-2 days. Big Brands Online wins the Auckland transport blog prize for recognizing home delivery as an opportunity to cut huge costs (retail space, car-parking etc) from their business model – savings which are passed onto consumers in the form of lower prices and free delivery. May the capitalist planets align to ensure the success of their business.
But at the other end of the spectrum my award for worst transport experience of the week goes to …
The Localist – 2-3 weeks ago I was crossing the intersection of Symonds/Alten Street and I was almost nailed by a red light runner. As the car flashed past in front of me I saw “The Localist” sign emblazoned on the door. I promptly lodged a complaint via the Localist website; three weeks later I have not yet received a response (let alone an explanation) from the company. Upon perusing their website I noted that The Localist is a subsidiary of NZ Post. In their “corporate sustainability” strategy NZ Post state the following mission (which they suggest applies to all their subsidiaries):
“enhance the sustainable growth of the New Zealand Post Group through acting to protect and build the environmental, human and social resources needed for the future.”
I’d suggest that by failing to follow up on my complaint about their driver’s dangerous red light running ”The Localist” has in turn failed to meet their self-proclaimed corporate responsibility. It is for this reason that they win my award for worst transport experience of the week.
P.s. Don’t forget to email me with your own transport experiences, good or bad!
By Patrick Reynolds, on March 23rd, 2012 Along with ‘Transformational’ the other phrase suffering from misuse in discussions around Auckland’s transport plans at the moment is ‘Multi-Modal’. This seems to have come from the logistics sector where it refers to the sending of goods over a variety of technologies and/or involving handling by various companies to get to their destination. In the urban transport context it seems to have at least three meanings:
1. A journey that uses more than one kind of movement, eg walk/bus/walk, or drive/rail/walk, or bike/ferry, or even bus/bus/bus [3 different bus rides] and so on.
2. An infrastructure project designed to facilitate different modes of movement, eg the AMETI project includes highways, buslanes, cycleways, and train station redevelopment, so can be described as multi-modal.
3. An analysis of needs for an area that sets out to not proscribe what mode, or combination of modes, will provide the best outcome. Currently there is [yet another] study into the transport needs of south west Auckland that aims to be multi-modal, which is to say it will look at whether trains, bus systems, more motorways, or maybe teleporting [!?], will best suit the needs of the area and at what cost.
So we can see how the phrase can mean various things, although generally we can say it is intended as a positive; as it sounds like a good thing, sounds like it offers choice, democracy, and in a sophisticated way. Who doesn’t want that?
Here is Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye:
I support, as does the Government, the development of a robust multi-modal plan for future transport into the CBD, which includes a thorough analysis of all the alternative modes to transport.
Sounds good doesn’t it? Except this is from at post on her website where the MP is detailing the government’s refusal to support the construction of the City Rail Link, because, somehow, it supports ‘a robust multi-modal plan’. So when you don’t want to support something but still want to appear all positive it seems calling for ‘a thorough analysis of all the alternative modes to [sic] transport’ seems like a cunning choice of phrasing; go all multi-modal. Okay, so perhaps we’ed better look at this phrase a little deeper.
The multi-modal journey.
Almost all public transport trips are multi-modal. With the occassional exception of someone who say works at Westpac, whose offices are directly above Britomart and who also happens to live right next door to another train station, all PT trips can be assumed to involve getting to the point of connection with the transit system by some other means, usually walking, and then doing the same at the other end of the transit journey. This fact is one of the reasons that cities with more effective public transport systems consistently record better health statistics than those without. Simply because with more people using PT, more people are getting more exercise.
The chief advantage of the vehicle mode is that it can be point to point. Straight from your garage at home to the carpark at your office. So while very handy also both extremely sedentary and completely mono-modal; therefore cities dominated by car use report poorer public health outcomes. There is all the evidence in the world for this for example; here, here, and here.
Of course park’n'ride journeys are also multi-modal, but usually involve less walking. And when I ride my bike to University I am only using one mode point to point, but still getting more exercise than those rainy days when I take the bus. But despite these two examples a place that supports more PT journeys, and therefore more multi-modal journeys, reports better health outcomes.
Nikki Kaye again:
 Twitter with Nikki Kaye Yes well Multi-Modal does include cycling and walking, and it’s great that Kaye knows this but do her government’s transport policies actually encourage more of either? There is nothing, for example, about opposing the construction of the City Rail Link that supports either Multi-Modality or cycling and walking. In fact quite the reverse. All PT encourages walking, offers choices other than driving, and frees the streets up to be available to cyclists and walkers. And fully underground and transformative projects like the CRL do these things extremely well.
So lets look at some more examples.
It is often gloomily noted that in order to get funding for a cycleway in Auckland you first need to find a billion dollar motorway project to attach it to. Certainly this is true of the Waterview project [and here] which despite taking place on a rail designation its only claim to any multi-modality is that the Environment Court has forced the addition of some pretty good funds for cycleways and paths as a means to mitigate the negative effects of this motorway on the local community. It has no public transport component -so other than the mitigating paths and bridges it is not really a multi-modal project. Hopefully AT will add buslanes to Gt North Rd after this project is complete but there is no funding or specific inclusion of bus priority in the Waterview project itself.
Multi-modality can be retro-fitted to an ordinary road too. Here is a multi-modal street in Manhattan: From left; bike lane, parking, general traffic, dedicated buslane. And to top it off pedestrian priority in the foreground. Four modes each with their own priority, clearly to do this you need a fair bit of road width, and that presupposes other systems of movement to compliment the road space. Of course Manhattan has a comprehensive subway system to free up this roadspace.
 First Avenue NYC photo: NYC DoT This pattern of strict separation isn’t the only way to multi up the modes; there’s also the ‘shared space’ way, this offers a more anarchic multi-modality that can work extremely well, especially in narrower streets where vehicles can be calmed by enough users of other modes, this type of system is common with trams too:
 Shared Street in Copenhagen Or we could think of particularly mono-modal systems; motorways are not only restrictive of what travels along them [no walking or cycling, and very little successful public transport] they also break connections across them for other modes, especially walking and cycling, but also for more local motorised connection too. Not only that but the quantity of traffic that they then dump onto to local streets severely limits the exercise of multi-modal patterns seen in the examples above.
 Auckland's CMJ This is what a Mono-Modality looks like. So anyone looking for a ‘robust Multi-Modal plan for future transport to the CBD’ would be wanting to urgently add the modes that are missing from this picture, and could well be looking to limit the use of systems like this one: the largest Motorway interchange in in Australasia.
So I guess the question I want to ask the government is how sincere are they really about Multi-Modality? I agree a truly multi modal Auckland would be a great improvement but successive governments have deviated very little from a highway dominant policy and the current one has greatly accelerated it, and therefore increased our Mono-Modality. The Government Policy Statement makes it very hard to get funding from NZTA for any mode at all other than state highways, in fact it seems designed to enable motorways to get funding no matter how poor their cost benefit analyses. So under this government the share of Land Transport funding going to anything other than state highways has shrunk. And now they are planning to make it even more difficult for the local authority to make its own investments that may differ from this bias.
These actions then are the exact opposite of promoting the Multi-Modal. I know this may seem naive but I would very much prefer politicians to back up their sweet words with actual actions.
By Patrick Reynolds, on March 1st, 2012 There’s something quite strange about Auckland Transport’s latest safety campaign for pedestrians- which focuses on university students. Despite the fact that it seems pretty unlikely pedestrians deliberately try to die or be seriously injured when crossing roads, they are seen as the ones who need most ‘educating’ when it comes to road safety:
 iPhone shot of Symonds St at the Grafton Rd intersection Auckland Transport’s new pedestrian campaign targets tertiary students returning to class urging them to take more care around pedestrian intersections.
Research shows students (young adults) are among one of the groups most likely to be in crashes involving pedestrians. Twenty seven per cent of all fatal and injury crashes in central Auckland involved a pedestrian.
With more than 38,500 students studying at the university and nearby AUT, the campus precinct is one of the busiest pedestrian areas in the CBD.
Talking on cell phones, chatting to friends, listening to music are all common distractions lowering people’s awareness of cars and changing traffic lights.
Auckland Transport Community Transport Manager Matthew Rednall says it is a real concern that many people are distracted when it comes to crossing the road.
“Walking is very much part of their daily campus life that we’re asking students not to become complacent but to be continually aware of the road environment.
“Just as risky is jaywalking and running to cross when there is no time to get across safely. It is worth waiting for the next light change or using the campus underpass instead.
“The campaign’s use of lifeguards is a fun way to get across a safety message to what can be a hard crowd to crack, says Mr Rednall.
Lifeguards dressed in bright orange will be stationed at intersections and in the University Quad interacting with the public.
Obviously when you’re crossing roads as a pedestrian you should take care. But the motivation to be careful is pretty strong: most people don’t want to get run over, seriously injured or killed. You would think that perhaps more focus should be on educating drivers to be more aware of pedestrians, or on efforts to lower speed limits in parts of the city centre where there is a lot of pedestrian activity, or to identify particularly dangerous spots and undertake works to improve safety in those locations.
Interestingly I recently found a report by UK consultants from 1966 for the council which said, among many criticisms of the motorway only policy then only just begun, this little gem:
 Buchanan+Partners, City of Auckland, 1966 Well you can see that that report got buried, here we are 46 years later and even Alfred St is still full of vehicles. But it does show that we have long know that the priority given to vehicles here is at the very least suboptimal yet here we are spending money on a well meaning but useless ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’ programme. Campaigns like this just seem to reinforce the mentality that our streets are only for cars, that drivers don’t need to be more careful and that it’s naturally the pedestrian’s fault for getting run over. It’s like we collectively have a Stockholm Syndrome about this: it’s the victims fault. Which seems wrong.
By Patrick Reynolds, on February 16th, 2012 If ever you make the mistake of reading the comment stream on the average Herald article about Auckland you will find this kind of thought from people like Rodney of Howick who states:
For some reason [Mayor] Len Brown seems convinced that there will be more businesses started in the CBD and more people wanting to live there. Sorry Len, but cities grow outward and not inward.
Well Rodney is wrong both in general about cities and in particular about Auckland over the last decade or so. Cities grow in all sorts of ways and recently Auckland has been growing inward and upward [a direction that Rodney seems to be ignorant of] and hasn’t it been fantastic. I recently covered the issue of inner city living in Auckland so in this post I want to illustrate some of the great changes that we have seen in Auckland’s public and commercial world in order to both contradict this kind of thinking and to celebrate these changes.
 Auckland Art Gallery But I also want to make an additional claim about Rodney’s opinion. He’s right. Well, he was right. Auckland, like almost every other city in the western world grew outward in the second half of the last century away from its old centre. There was a consistent and unstoppable move away from inner-city areas for both habitation and commerce throughout this period. The very terms urban and inner-city came to freight negative connotations and lower value was given to the existing structures of the old city centres,
‘Clapham? Surely not! I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s terribly urban, so urban,’ with her feelings centred on the word urban. I wondered if I had mistaken the meaning of urban, if it now meant more than ‘of the city’.
-Janet Frame Angel At My Table p282 original emphasis.
Of course some cities suffered from this phase more than others. Auckland’s inner suburbs were bisected for motorways to feed these new suburbs and the city itself very nearly completely expired through flight and separation. This transformation was the result of public policy, especially as expressed in transport decisions, but that in turn did reflect the spirit of the times [although it was not universally supported- see Paul Mees Transport for Suburbia for good coverage of this]. The move to the suburbs was in, and the destruction of the old city was consistent with the brave new world of modernism which had an exhilarating commitment to the bold fresh start on a blank canvas. And why not, after the appalling wars that seemed to be the culmination of the old world order.
 Detail of the new Auckland Art Gallery by FMJT + Archimedia The most affected cities of this phase have become know as ‘doughnut cities’ because they now have a hole instead of a centre. Detroit is the poster child for this, but Christchurch is another good example. A weak centre ringed by low density suburbs with busy shopping malls sitting in a sea of carparking. The surviving examples of its Gothic Revival past made the old centre like a fairly lifeless full size museum. Of course it now has bigger problems and in fact the chance to fix this imbalance, but it is not clear that it will.
 Takutai Square above Britomart Station Auckland’s centre was largely saved by the failure of those that wanted the University to leave town for a poorly connected greenfields site at Tamaki. Unlike the Christchurch CBD which lost its University, it was largely the growth of the University along with AUT through the barren years of the 1980s that just kept the city going until the tide changed.
 North Wharf by Fearon Hay Architects And a tide it is. We are now in a new phase with a complete new set of economic, social, environmental, and spatial imperatives. Which are in the process of transforming our lives in ways that are just as profound as the one that began with the Great Depression and wasn’t really in full flight until the 1950s. [See Richard Florida's The Great Reset for more on this]. Although these changes are not evenly spread nor always obvious in the midst of them happening.
 Ironbank by RTA Central to understanding the postwar revolution is the rise of the car and huge spatial changes that we made to accommodate it. Likewise it seems that we are currently in an age where the penetration of the auto-centric life has reached its limits and a new order with different patterns of movement are beginning to assert themselves. I am not claiming that we will suddenly abandon all driving but rather its centrality to our lives and the dominant role it has in shaping our communities and routines will diminish. This will take time and like the last big shift will require effort and investment in alternatives, and of course will be contested by those who benefit from the old way, or just identify with it.
 North Wharf at Wynyard Quarter An important driver of this change, and also a result of it, is the desire for a more livable and human-centred spatial order, and perhaps ironically, one better connected to its constituent parts, its suburbs. While the centre is crucial to this dynamic change [See Ed Glaeser's The Triumph of the City], it isn’t at the expense of the hinterland but rather it is a transformation and an intensification of everywhere. It should mean the triumph of the local, a rise in difference, as well as in interconnectedness. And a world where the word urban has reverted to its older connotations, more likely to imply sophistication and growth than decline and despair.
 The Imperial by Fearon Hay Architects  The Imperial Except for our friend Rodney, or others like him whose views were formed last century and are stuck there. Or others living eslewhere in the country for whom Auckland is a distant or unwelcome thought. And this is the world view that the current government holds and is determined to force on us all. That they are clearly fighting against the new zeitgeist that is, like the last one, both global and probably irresistible is cause for optimism. But it also underlines how frustrating it is when we at last have a Council that speaks for the whole city and that ‘gets it’ only to have yesterdays world view being clung to by a dominating authority.
 from Fort Lane, one of the new shared spaces; until recently only used for parking vehicles and trash My photographs here are intended to show that the transformation of Auckland is well underway and not just a theory or the dream of some urban designers at the Council. But a real phenomenon being invested in by companies and public bodies and being successfully occupied by a full range of businesses, institutions, and individuals for all of our benefit.
 A great example of successful transformation: The Auckland Art Gallery These are the amenities and pleasures, business and work opportunities, that are the fruits of intensification and improved interconnection. This is the city we can have if we invest in new forms of movement and liberate the city from being so dominated by the demands of the car. Maybe even Rodney may come to town on occasion and see that ‘up and in’ is the 21st century way and for the simple reason that growth in these directions will help make us happier, healthier, and indeed wealthier.
 New or improved uses for old building are the best way to be able to keep them. Better than a new car park?  Adding exciting new layers to the city can only be afforded through more intense use
 New and old businesses co-existing in new ways: Making the city one big shared space
By Matt L, on February 15th, 2012 This is a reminder for what looks to be an excellent event happening this Sunday. It will be really interesting to see Queen St converted for pedestrian use and something I hope we continue to see much more of.
For the first time ever, from Customs Street to Wyndham Street, we’re kicking out the cars and turning Queen Street into one big sports park!
Come and have a go at football, cricket, cycling, squash, zumba and more. Experts will be on hand to give you a few tips and there will be heaps of competitions.
All the Queen Street shops and eateries will be open and there will be picnic spots on the street. You’re only a stone’s throw from Auckland’s new world-class art gallery and the waterfront, so there’s heaps to do in town for a day.
Check Newstalk ZB from 8am on the day in case of rain.
Getting there
Visit the MAXX website to check the bus, ferry and train timetables.
If you’re driving, leave the car a little way from the city and walk in, or make use ofAuckland Council’s $2.50/hr parking at Victoria Street and the Downtown car parks.
| When |
Sunday 19 February, 10am-4pm
Rain date: Sunday 26 February |
| Where |
Queen Street - from Customs Street to Wyndham Street, central Auckland |
| Cost |
Free |
One thing to note though is that due to some pretty poor planning, all trains on the weekend will be replaced by buses for electrification upgrade works.
By Patrick Reynolds, on January 30th, 2012 A plainly daft piece on the proposed Auckland Plan by Bill Ralston recently appeared in the NZ Listener. In it he claims, completely without any reason, that the plan sets out to demolish where he lives, as well as every other desirable part of Auckland in the name of instensification. This is simply untrue. It is true that the Plan hopes to encourage Auckland to continue to become a more intensive city, but not by demolishing the very best bits, or even very much of it at all. In fact it is decidedly half-hearted about containing the spread outwards, even proposing 140,000 new detached houses be built in the next 30 years under one scenario. All on what is currently productive and attractive distant countryside, and all to be served by endlessly and expensively rolling out new services: From the current 385,000 detached houses to 526,000! Did you actually read the thing, Bill?
In any case, intensification is clearly a matter of degree and the areas proposed for the kind of high density high rise growth that so alarms dear old Bill [but of course not everyone], is all carefully allotted to currently empty or underused commercial ‘brownfields’ sites on transport corridors in areas like the CBD, Glen Innes, and New Lynn. Not Bill’s neck of the woods. Other areas are intended to be encouraged to move from low to medium density. Bill’s place isn’t on this list either.
Ironically, in light of this reaction, the type of intensification that would go a long way to both accommodating Auckland’s growth and greatly improving our quality of life is about trying to help more of Auckland more closely resemble Bill’s very own suburb. His suburb is, in fact, a role model for how much of Auckland ideally could be. But that isn’t by repeating the thing that Bill thinks his ‘burb is all about, the appearance of the buildings, but rather about how they are organised. Not architectural design, but urban design. Really, how?
Freemans Bay is, along with St Mary’s Bay, Herne Bay, Parnell, Devonport, Northcote, Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, and Mt Eden, a highly sought after and therefore expensive bit of old Auckland. So it is worth asking what is so good about it?
Well most of the buildings are old. That’s it isn’t it? Most people love old houses, with their mature trees, and in Auckland that means Victorian and Edwardian houses, usually detached wooden dwellings. Unlike Sydney, Auckland isn’t old enough to have Georgian buildings and also unlike Sydney or Dunedin there wasn’t the resource of stone or even much brick to compete with the pillage of the native forests that our forebears felt so entitled to use so completely. Furthermore, in a reversal of the trend of the second half of the last century we have recently been rediscovering the advantages of these close-in old suburbs. So instead of looking on these areas as slums and bulldozing them wholesale in order to build motorways as we did from the 1960s we have recently been turning houses like this one: More and more into houses like this one:
But that isn’t the whole story is it? Properly understood three factors make Freemans Bay such a great place to live, and only one of them is the irreplaceable age of the structures. And this is important because while we can’t time-travel and build real Victorian houses again we can take the best urban design features from these areas to improve what we build next, and even fix other parts of the existing city with these ideas too. The three essential features, in no particular order, that make Freemans Bay so desirable are:
1. Physical Heritage
2. Proximity to the centre
3. Population density
All the things that you may like about Freemans Bay flow from these; for example, great cafés and shops? They are a function of the quantity of people around and the desirability of the place, which in turn is because of the density of the housing and the proximity to the centre of town. Retail businesses need enough customers, and specialised ones need an even higher number going by because their appeal is, by definition, narrow.
But hang on, waddaymean population density?, this is just a suburb with detached houses and some shops isn’t it?, same as Dannemora or Botany? Well it isn’t high density but it is medium density and is considerably higher than most more recent suburbs. And here’s how: As this post by Admin shows, when looked at in detail you can see that the narrow streets and painted shiplap conceal a clever spatial order that maximises private space yet retains public charm. It is in fact this spatial order, and its resultant density of population that sustains the local businesses and other amenities all at close proximity.
Of course old buildings add texture and charm, but it is important urban design features and not architectural ones that make the real structural differences. Let’s look at Bill’s favourite café, mentioned in his article: Agnes Curran. Yes it is in a building pleasingly made of plastered brick and the door to the rooms above are surrounded by Georgian style decoration, lovely. But let’s look at everything else that makes this a really successful streetscape and business. The café occupies a tiny space about the size of two car parks, it is right up to the generous footpath, a footpath separated from the traffic by mature Plane trees [with a new one recently added on the right], the trees also accommodate a limited number of on-street car parks. A small apartment building to the left of the shot is smack up the boundary with the cafe and the footpath, and there are other levels of accommodation above retail spaces on the main road. Thus there is an extremely tight integration of the residential and commercial functions of this neighbourhood; so everyone walks, no need to drive when your destination is already right there. Here it is from above: The cafe is in the alley between the grey and reddish rooves at bottom left. Occupying the space that would have to be given over to off-street parking were this a new building- by current council regulation. Note that the houses are closer than is currently allowed in new subdivisions, and that their garden space is all together in one piece at the rear of each house. Small, but all usable, and private. And Ponsonby Rd is, by Auckland standards, relatively well served by public transport, especially in the form of the frequent new Inner Link bus service, connecting this place to the CBD, the universities, the hospital, everything really. It is easy to see that this is quite an intensely built place, but also pleasantly leafy, and is in fact at the intersection of two pretty busy roads; Ponsonby and Franklin. How can it be of such density but still be so pleasant, it must be the design of the buildings? Well that is of course important, but how much they appeal to you is really a matter of personal taste, no, it has much more to do with what is not visible in this picture. To show what that is lets have a look at a cafe in a more recent part of town: Dunkin Donuts at Botany Downs courtesy of Google [sorry but I'm not going there]. And from above: Well in fact there’s a whole lot of food outlets on in this image, a KFC, a seafood place, as well as Dunkin Donuts. And yup they are all pretty nasty new buildings, built to a price and without any conviction that they mean to stay. But also note there are no houses or apartments of any kind here and no one walking. But there is the one amenity that is almost entirely absent from the earlier scene. This is a place rich in carparking. Viewed from above or from street level it is clear that this is a place entirely made for the movement and storage of cars. Yes you can argue that that what most distinguishes the natures of these two places is the age and design of the structures, but it is also clear that the spatial organisation is at least as important a difference. Put simply the first is designed for people and the second for cars. The first has a higher density of humans and the second of machines. The first, of course, commands much higher values and is where Bill wants to live. And the first, while more expensive to buy into, is actually cheaper to live in, because the intensity of the place means the costs of movement are much lower. It is a place that you can easily function without a car at all for example [As local resident, Bill, says in this article].
But of course the people living Freemans Bay do still use cars, but unlike those that live in the these new areas, they don’t have to use them just to get to their local café or other common local amenity, like schools, workplaces, or bars. They walk more and they use public transport more. Why? not because they are cleverer than the people in Dannemora but because their area was designed for those choices to be the most obvious, most productive, and most enjoyable things to do. And we can spread more of this simple genius to other parts of our city, even Botany, if can just reverse the insane auto-centric planning priorities of the last fifty years. This means putting people at the centre of the spatial organisation of places. It means repealing the rules that insist that the car must be catered for first. And it means for many of our primarily residential areas mixing the living and working and playing in the kind of intense proximity that Bill enjoys in Freemans Bay.
And it also means that we must provide systems of movement that do not devalue the very places they are meant to serve. Which of course means fast, frequent, smart, public transit. Something lacking in the newer suburb.
Furthermore, if we can get those planning settings right and are able to encourage the kind of spatial organisation that Bill enjoys so unconsciously in Freemans Bay, it is highly likely that we will see the design of the individual buildings in these places improve significantly, because increased intensity of humans also means increased intensity of economic activity. And, of course, because it involves unlocking the land and the resources currently tied up so unproductively in providing so much amenity for vehicles.
We can have Freemans Bay’s qualities of urban design in other places with contemporary design and technologies, after all Freemans Bay isn’t all old buildings and is all the better for it. It isn’t a museum. Here are two quite different and award winning recent detached houses there, The first by Marsh Cook: And the second by Malcolm Walker: Freemans Bay also has contemporary buildings by Mitchell + Stout, Stevens Lawson, Fearon Hay, Andrew Patterson, and more. Along with council pensioner flats, town houses, and apartment buildings.
And remember, while The Plan doesn’t envisage the core of Freemans Bay changing much at all, it does for some other underperforming areas of Auckland. And as the picture below of Freemans Bay in 1877 shows change is always possible, and can be a very good thing indeed……… Anyway, why shouldn’t more Aucklanders get the chance to enjoy their neighbourhood as much as our friend Bill Ralston enjoys his?
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