Auckland Transport’s speed humps and the war on pedestrians – Simon Wilson

THE FACTS

• A High Court judge has found in favour of a law student who took Auckland Transport to court.
• The case concerned speed humps and a raised pedestrian crossing.
• The traffic-calming measures were introduced in the Auckland suburb of Bucklands Beach.

Congratulations to Sean O’Loughlin? He’s the 20-year-old law student who took Auckland Transport to the High Court for ignoring its own rules and won. Impressive. Every Goliath deserves its David.

But what was this victory? At issue were three speed humps and a raised pedestrian crossing on The Parade, the street that runs along the shore of Bucklands Beach in east Auckland. O’Loughlin argued AT did not properly consider whether the traffic calming measures would “unduly impede vehicular traffic”.

Justice David Johnstone agreed, saying AT had focused too much on speed reduction and safety issues and had installed the safety features “without the existence of authorising power”.

O’Loughlin said AT had relied on a “pre-written template” for assessing the project and the judge appears to have accepted that meant the agency had not thought about motorists enough.

Law student Sean O'Loughlin with the offending pedestrian crossing. Photo / Dean Purcell

It’s hard to know where to start.

My guess is the learned judge has never been to the beach or perhaps has only driven past in his car.

If he had been, he would be familiar with what happens on the streets in seaside communities like Bucklands Beach. Lots of children, families, dog walkers, elderly people, runners and other pedestrians. A relaxed vibe.

It’s lovely along that beachfront and there’s a social contract in play: we’ll all do our bit to keep this a safe, fun place.

Except the High Court says, in effect, that this is less important than protecting motorists’ “right” to travel as fast as the speed limit allows. How else to translate the prohibition on “unduly impeding vehicular traffic”?

Next problem: these are speed humps, not bumps, and they don’t impede traffic. They’re gradual: rather than forcing motorists to slow down, they remind them to take care.

And the “raised” pedestrian crossing is barely raised at all. This is because AT has become so frightened of angry motorists (and their friends in the legal profession) they now build them very flat.

Let’s remember that motorists are supposed to take care at a pedestrian crossing and give way to anyone who wants to cross. In my view, raising them slightly doesn’t ignore the law, it reinforces it.

And that “pre-written template”? I have more news for our esteemed friends in the legal profession. Almost every council report, every process and every decision is made on a template.

There are several reasons for this. One is to ensure they consider everything they’re supposed to. True, when a template is used, it might mean items were just ticked off and ignored. But it’s more likely to suggest they worked their way through the list of relevant criteria without forgetting any.

It’s not just councils, either. Mechanics use checklists when they warrant your car. Pilots use checklists. These things reassure me and, just another mad guess here, I suspect they also reassure Justice Johnston.

Another reason for using a template is that it would be vastly more time-consuming and expensive not to. Imagine if decision-making processes always had to be dreamed up from scratch.

The court might not mind if the council never got anything done and rates were adjusted to allow for the hundreds of extra staff, but I would.

Efficiency and checking everything are required for good decision-making. Templates make it possible.

Provided they’re used properly, of course. You can’t just tick the boxes, you have to consider each item. AT told the court it had done that but was not believed.

There are bigger issues here.

O’Loughlin says the issue isn’t traffic calming, it’s proper processes. Really? If you’re going to take the AT Goliath to court, there are some more significant legal shortcomings for an intrepid David to fire his sling at.

For example, AT is supposed to make the roads more efficient. This is the top item in the Letter of Expectation provided to it by the council, and in AT’s own Letter of Intent in response. These are statutory documents.

There are lots of ways to do it, including getting more people on to public transport, smart traffic lights, dynamic lanes and taking car parks off arterial roads.

Mayor Wayne Brown constantly criticises AT for being much too slow with these changes. Is he right? That would make a terrific court case.

Then there’s climate action. For the past five years Auckland Council has been instructing AT to help realise the goals of its climate action plan, Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri. This includes a 64% reduction in transport emissions, which account for 40% of the city’s total greenhouse-gas emissions.

You might think those targets are too big. Many councillors do. But the policy has not been amended and AT has been reminded, every year, that it is supposed to adopt it.

It hasn’t. There are now 224 e-buses, improved bus services, soon-to-be much-improved train services and other initiatives. But that’s far too little. Auckland’s emissions are not coming down by much and AT has no big plan to address this. What a great court case that would be.

Also, AT has a habit of underspending on its cycleway budget. How about taking them to court for that?

And what about the real biggie? Safety. AT is obliged to consider the safety of all road users in its decisions. In line with this, in 2020, it began to lower speed limits on our more dangerous roads. Data after the first 18 months revealed a 47% reduction in fatalities on roads with lowered speed limits, while fatalities on other roads had increased.

A real, measurable achievement, for which the agency was, rightly, very proud. Then the Government changed and the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, got Cabinet to agree to abandon the lower speeds.

Former Transport Minister Simeon Brown, who ticked all the boxes. Photo / Mark Mitchell

In Hamilton and Dunedin, mindful of their legal obligations, they fought this. Successfully. But despite a big public campaign, AT did not. Despite its own evidence of success with lower speed limits, it raised speed limits again.

And it’s not only AT at fault. The Government has the same statutory requirement to maintain the safety of the roads.

Last year, using the Official Information Act, I obtained all the documents Brown presented to Cabinet in support of the new speed rules.

Those documents show that the Ministry of Transport, armed with its own analysis and advice from the NZ Transport Agency, made it clear to Cabinet that raising speed limits was likely to increase the number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads. Local and international evidence for this is clear.

Guess what those Cabinet documents included? Templated checklists: the minister had to confirm he had considered the safety of this, this and this. He ticked the boxes. Literally.

Templates enable a good process but they don’t guarantee it. The proof of this is not AT’s traffic-calming initiatives. It’s Simeon Brown’s box ticking over speed and safety, when he had the evidence to show he was making the roads less safe. And the Cabinet, which also had that evidence, let him do it.

Cabinet and now the High Court. Sometimes, it feels like a war on pedestrians. And at all times, kids and grandparents and everyone else should be able to cross the road to the beach with confidence, in safety and at peace.