Brian Rudman: Red-chip gets the asterisk treatment

The games Auckland City's bureaucrats play to rid our streets of landmark red-chip paving seem to know no bounds.

This afternoon they're at it again with a report to councillors using figures that are misleadingly skewed in favour of the bureaucracy's preferred option - black-chip concrete.

If councillors at today's combined meeting of the transport and arts and culture committee have not noticed the diminutive asterisk alongside the red chip price per km in their agenda, they should follow it to the footnote at the bottom of the page. There they will discover they're being asked to compare apples with gold-plated oranges.

The truth is, black chip and red chip cost about the same. But that's not what the highlighted figures under the heading "budget implications" proclaim.

There, in bold print as RECOMMENDED OPTION you read that black chip concrete paving will cost $121,200 per km over 50 years, while red chip concrete comes in at $159,823*.

It's only when you delve deeper into the chart and follow the asterisk that you discover that red chip, at worst, costs around $1000 extra a km over 50 years, not the $38,623 claimed at the top. The reason for the difference is that the red chip price is lumbered with the additional cost of replacing all vehicle crossings in a street while the black chip figure is not.

The misleading use of asterisks to disguise airfares has got Air New Zealand into serious trouble in the courts over the years and rightly so. It's not the behaviour you'd expect from public officials.

The officials have this strange belief that red chip paving clashes with existing white concrete car crossings and that they'd have to be replaced "to provide a consistent look and feel". Perversely, they don't have the same aesthetic problem with black chip paving.

Even worse is the consultation used to back up officialdom's viewpoint. But first, a little history.

In 2003, red-chip was voted tops in a round of public consultation. Subsequently, the council implemented a policy to use both red and black chip, depending on the locality.

In November 2004, senior officials Jill McPherson and Paul Sonderer, without reference to politicians, banned red chip because of perceived colour clashes between the paving and white crossings, and problems matching old and new red paving.

Council staff prepared a belated report proposing a policy change in July last year but it was never submitted to politicians for ratification.

In February this year, chief executive David Rankin said that "in retrospect it should have been progressed faster".

He argued officials had not unilaterally changed council policy, simply suspended old policy. Whatever that means.

Now to the present. Last month Phoenix Research was commissioned by the bureaucrats to consult Aucklanders on the issue. Four focus groups, each with eight participants ranging in age from 18 to 92, met on a Saturday afternoon to consider the evidence. There were a range of ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds and "life stages". They were paid $60 apiece.

Phoenix reported back that "most people felt that the black chip concrete exposed finish ... was the most practical, attractive and cost-effective footpath surface offered." The report noted that cost was "a major consideration for participants".

But reading the full report it is obvious that participants, and the Phoenix report writer, following a "technical" briefing from the city bureaucrats, were erroneously convinced that the red chip option was more expensive.

We're told that "while some participants from upmarket/heritage areas had a strong preference for red chip, others from the same areas expressed considerable expectation that Auckland City should consider only the cheaper options".

In a chart showing the "general opinion" of participants about the various footpath surfaces, red chip scored the same as black for appearance, but lost out on cost, panellists saying it was "too costly".

Yet in truth, both colours of concrete cost the same.

For a city built on a field of volcanoes and wanting to exploit it's explosive past, what better branding than scoria-coloured pavements. It's distinctive, and since 1904 it's been part of Auckland's look. For once our elected politicians should stand up to the bureaucrats and declare enough is enough.