Wayne Brown is mystified over road works outside SkyCity. Video / Wayne Brown
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown wants to halt the Victoria St linear park project due to cost and disruption.
Brown earlier criticised Auckland Transport for roadworks outside SkyCity, questioning their purpose and impact on traffic.
The project, budgeted at $60.5 million, aims to enhance walking and cycling between Albert Park and Victoria Park.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown wants to halt further work on a major city centre project costing tens of millions of dollars.
The Victoria St linear park, Te Hā Noa, is a key Auckland Council project in the City Centre Masterplan, focused on walking and cycling withfewer vehicle lanes between Albert Park and Victoria Park.
Work on this project has reached Federal St, and Auckland Transport has installed a temporary cycleway and bus stop outside Sky City.
In a statement to the Herald last night, the mayoral office said Brown is aware of the council’s longer-term plan for the Victoria St linear park but does not support further extensions due to the cost and disruption to commuters and users of the city centre.
The temporary works outside SkyCity. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
“The Mayor has always made it clear that he wants investments that will get Auckland moving and ensure ratepayer money is not wasted.
“Mayor Brown wants city centre investment focused on low-cost, low-impact projects to fix traffic congestion, like work done to improve the flow of traffic from east to west through the city, rather than create more problems,” the statement said.
The section of the project along Victoria St between Kitchener St to Hobson St is budgeted at $60.5 million.
The first sections of Te Hā Noa have reached Federal St, but budget cuts in 2023 saw the $10m short section of road between Federal St and Hobson St deferred.
Of the $50.5m spent so far, $34.2m has come from the centre city targeted rate paid by commercial and residential property owners to “enhance the environs of the city centre”.
Earlier this month, Brown blasted Auckland Transport over temporary roadworks for the project.
A lot of money has been spent on taking out two lanes of traffic leading to an important intersection and nobody knows what it is for, Brown said in a video posted on his mayoral Facebook page.
In the video, Brown says with a big smile: “Cones central, welcome to cones central.”
The Victoria Park linear park has got as far as Federal St. This photo shows the two-lane cycleway alongside a portal for the City Rail Link, right. Photo / Michael Craig
“Here we have what was a nice two lanes going up to a very important intersection [Victoria and Hobson Sts]. Now it doesn’t work like that. We have spent all this money and nobody knows what it is for.
“Who is supposed to stand here, why is there a rise here, is it for a bus, is it a cycleway, what’s supposed to happen here, are people supposed to walk here, it’s got those walking things, where does it go to?” says Brown walking along the works.
The mayor points to cars “having to go through three lanes to turn left” from Federal St to Victoria St.
“I don’t think Auckland Transport is listening. Two of the biggest car parks in Auckland are in Federal St [SkyCity and Auckland Council car parks],” says Brown, who at his re-election announcement last week said the heat is on AT “to stop doing dumb stuff that the public don’t want”.
Waitākere councillor Ken Turner shares the mayor’s frustration at the recently installed roadworks, saying it takes up to 30 minutes to drive 200m from the council car park on Federal St to reach Hobson St.
“My normal drive home at Little Huia takes about 90 minutes, now it’s taking up to a third of that time to go 200m.
“It’s just a bugger’s muddle. You couldn’t make this stuff up,” Turner said.
The work outside SkyCity is part of a missing link of Victoria St’s cycleway between Nelson and Federal Sts being installed by Auckland Transport.
The two-way cycleway and traffic island for a bus stop outside SkyCity will stay in place until the next section of the Victoria St linear park is built.
Councillor Ken Turner says the temporary works outside Sky City are "a bugger's muddle". Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Council head of the city centre programmes Jenny Larking said the Victoria St linear park is a significant transformational move in the City Centre Plan – the guiding vision for the city centre.
She said the aspiration is for a green link from Albert Park to Victoria Park focused on walking and cycling. Two other east-west links, Wellesley St and Mayoral Drive, focus on a bus interchange and vehicles respectively.
AT customer and network performance director Simon Buxton said the temporary works outside SkyCity have been done alongside regular maintenance works to prevent the need for future closures and traffic management.
He said the traffic lights have been adjusted between Federal and Hobson Sts for more “green time” to allow more vehicles to pass through.
This story originally suggested Auckland Transport was the main agency working on Victoria St’s Te Hā Noa project. It is an Auckland Council-led project.
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