Martin Spencer: Very nice... but there's no parking

COMMENT

When first I read the Herald article headlined "Queen St to get a $23 million soul" my reaction as a property owner was one of delight. A project designed to restore Queen St's allure had to be great for retailers and building owners alike.

The increase in pedestrian traffic in the inner city has not been matched by the quality of the retail shops serving them.

But by the time I reached the end of the article I was alarmed. Auckland City Council research was cited as showing that people complained about traffic jams. And what was the new plan going to do about that congestion?

The article summarised: "Road narrowed to a kerbside lane for loading and bus stops and one traffic lane in each direction, or just one wide lane in each direction." In other words the plan was to more than double the congestion by halving the number of lanes available to moving traffic.

Anyone who has experienced trial-and-error traffic engineering such as that used when the Shore Rd roundabout was built knows that reducing two lanes to one more than doubles the length of the queues and increases congestion exponentially. So the new plan will dramatically worsen the first of the public's complaints.

What about the second public complaint cited by council research: lack of parking? The article said private parking would be banned.

This means that the 45 free P15 car parks on both sides of Queen St, used almost all the time for more than 11 hours a day, will be removed.

Assuming the parkers stay only their allotted 15 minutes each, this means just under 2000 people will no longer be able to stop in Queen St and pop into a shop or office. Where will those 2000 people go?

If the plan calls for only a single lane of traffic on each side of Queen St, private parking has to be removed because of the congestion it causes with cars coming in and out of parks.

Thus if we are to retain those short-term spots for casual use, we would have to retain the present system with two traffic lanes on each side in addition to the room for parking bays.

Partly to compensate for this lack of casual parking, the council is adding several hundred parks to its parking buildings. This is a splendid idea because it will help alleviate the overall shortage of inner-city parking and make it easier for people to get into the city centre.

However, these additional parks cannot be considered an alternative to free P15s right in the main street. There is just no comparison between popping in and out of a P15 at street level and queuing up to enter a parking building, driving round looking for a park, then travelling down five floors in a smelly lift or staircase to street level. And afterwards queuing up to pay for the parking and reversing the whole business to get out.

Once they have read and understood the details of this plan, the retailers of Queen St will surely be up in arms and asking Alex Swney, the chief executive of Heart of the City, who said the plan was less than perfect, to petition the city council to rethink.

Interestingly, council planners have acknowledged to me that halving the traffic lanes in Queen St will increase congestion, and that cars will be diverted from the street. This will be done by increasing the intelligence of the traffic lights in and around the area to make traffic avoid Queen St and flow around the area more easily.

To help to alleviate the reduction in parking, the planners speak of a system of interactive signs guiding people entering the city centre to those parking buildings with spaces available.

Like the increases in capacity of the parking buildings, these are admirable innovations and will make life easier for people wanting to use the central city. But why not make these improvements anyway?

Why wait to introduce them only as a result of artificially introducing more congestion, or removing the most convenient short-term parking in the city centre?

The plan speaks of giving priority to pedestrians. This is the rationale behind widening the footpaths and halving the traffic lanes. But as one who daily walks in Queen St at some of the busiest times, I do not find the footpaths congested. The council's research found the public complained about traffic congestion, not pedestrian crowding.

Why increase the mobility of pedestrians, who do not see themselves as congested, at the expense of motorists, who do?

It seems that the thinking behind this plan is that the added beauty introduced into Queen St will more than compensate for the added difficulty in getting there. In other words, aesthetics will overcome lack of convenience.

Unfortunately, this is not practical. In today's busy life, when people have increasingly less time to waste, they always look for the most convenient way of doing things.

The added beauty will attract Auckland's population into Queen St to see the improvements when they are finished, but once they discover how difficult it has become to drive around and to find a car park, they will not come back.

It is also hoped that a more attractive street will attract a better class of retailer to the city centre. I hope this is true, but retailers move to a location because of the demographic of the pedestrians walking past their door.

The quality of shops in Queen St right now reflects the demographic of the people walking up and down it, not how many trees are planted along it.

The Auckland City Council must find a way to spend the money beautifying the street without restricting the traffic, and without removing the on-street public parking. There must be a way to enhance the streetscape without having to remove half the traffic lanes.

* Martin Spencer is a Queen St property owner.