High St, at right, has had metered all night parking since 2020. Should the rest of the city follow suit? Photo / Supplied
OPINION
Did it surprise users of the underground carpark at Aotea Square that some of their fellow citizens believe evening parking in the city should be free? After all, most people pay for it.
There are 21,200 public parks in parking buildings in central Auckland, none of which are free to use at any time. There are only 2400 on-street parks. The overwhelming majority of evening visitors use a parking building, call an Uber or catch public transport. All of them pay to do this.
Why shouldn’t those who park at the kerb?
Viv Beck from the business group Heart of the City suggests it will undermine the night-time economy, which she says comprises a quarter of the whole economy of the central city.
But as with the daytime economy, that’s not true. There’s no evidence retail and hospitality need free on-street parking to prosper.
The people who could be badly affected are low-paid hospitality workers, cleaners and other late-night workers. How about a special parking permit for them?
Auckland is not a small town. Charging for overnight parking is common to major urban centres everywhere and should be unremarkable here. Some of Beck’s own members make a good living from it.
As for Mayor Wayne Brown, he should be championing the policy.
In his letter of expectation to Auckland Transport (AT) of December 21, 2022, he wrote: “One key area Auckland Transport should investigate is increasing revenue from parking. Currently, Auckland Transport is undercutting market rates for parking, which is not appropriate in this environment.”
That’s the mayor explicitly asking for a policy like the one now causing howls of outrage. You’d think he would have the integrity to defend it.
AT says the revenue from the plan will be about $800,000 to $900,000, which will increase parking revenue by about 10 per cent. It’s not much.
Revenue is not the only goal. Parking charges are one of the most effective levers for reducing the number of cars in the city. That creates a safer and more pleasant environment for workers, shoppers and residents; it reduces congestion and it lowers carbon emissions.
There’s general agreement about the value of all these things: they will improve the city, not make it worse. And they’re all in line with council policy.
But what about residents? Is it fair to them? For sure, it will have been a shock to those who park on the street to discover their free parking is about to disappear.
But it’s not wrong, is it? As a rule, no one has the right to store their property on public land. Why should cars be any different?
The principle is well established in 11 city-fringe suburban areas, where residents who want to park on the street have to buy a parking permit. That approach can easily be applied to the central city.
Despite suggestions to the contrary, no change to the law is required. AT has the authority to do it now.
Brown has complained he was blindsided by the 24/7 parking fee plan.
But it’s not new. In 2020, AT introduced 24/7 parking fees on High St, which runs parallel to Queen St. AT’s group manager of parking services, John Strawbridge, says there have been few problems.
On April 5 last year, AT presented its Room to Move parking strategy for the whole region to the full council, in a 90-minute session.
Early this year, the AT board approved the 24/7 plan for the city centre. Following that, the mayor’s office asked AT for a briefing, which was provided by the chief executive, Dean Kimpton.
Yet somewhere along the way Brown and AT seem to have come adrift from each other.
Could the internal communications have been better? Presumably. Could the public consultation have been better? Undoubtedly. But complaints about a “lack of consultation” are often a front for the real complaint, which is about the policy itself.
AT needs to get better at managing this and the mayor needs to get better at fronting the consequences of his own demands.
And it would be nice if the city didn’t go into meltdown every time a sensible plan to manage traffic and council revenue is proposed, just because drivers are asked to pay a bit more of the real cost of using a car.
Parking charges are one of several potentially hot topics that will come before the council on Thursday, when it addresses the mayor’s revised long-term plan, aka a new 10-year budget.
Among them, the new plan for the port.
Brown has dropped his earlier proposal to sell a 35-year operating lease, which did seem to contradict his own long-term hopes for moving the port. Instead, Port of Auckland (POA) has committed to paying higher dividends to the council, mainly by increasing user charges.
The peak container handling fee will rise from $95 to $220-$250. No audible anguish to date from the business community.
Brown, to his credit, has pointed out that it’s not much on a container with $20,000 of goods inside. The new rates will be in line with Australian ports and it’s staggering this hasn’t happened sooner.
Not everything about the new port plan has yet been revealed. At the heart of it is a proposal to extend Bledisloe Wharf 13 metres further into the Waitematā.
This work is expected to cost about $70 million, although a business case has not been produced. That, as it happens, is the amount the council will pay to take control of the semi-derelict finger wharves - Captain Cook and Marsden - that lie between Bledisloe and Queens wharves, along with the sea wall, or breastworks, that keep the sea away from Quay St.
It’s a paper transaction in one sense, because the council owns the port anyway. But the finger wharves require substantial repair or demolition and are therefore a liability that’s going off the port’s books and onto the council’s.
Brown’s medium-term ambition is that the area becomes a public amenity. Personally, I’m a big fan of that, but should the council take on the liability at this time?
Why does the port want to extend Bledisloe? It will accommodate mega-cruise ships, but there aren’t many of them. The bigger stated reason is to enhance the general operations of the port, especially the vehicle transport ships.
The bigger unstated reason is that it will increase the asset value of the port, making it harder to move at a future date. That’s not in the public interest.
You might think changes on this scale would at least stop cruise ships from clogging up the ferry basin.
Councillor Chris Darby reported to a council meeting last week that 180 ferry sailings were cancelled last summer, 68 per cent of them because cruise ships got in the way. Another 160 sailings were delayed.
I asked POA chief executive Roger Gray about this and he revealed that even after the Bledisloe extension is completed, 50 per cent of cruise ships will continue to berth at Princes Wharf, in the ferry basin.
He added that moving these ships away would be done “progressively” and take about 20 years.
Speaking of slow progress on the waterfront, the Wynyard Crossing bridge will remain out of action for the rest of the year. With the arms up.
This is because, by law, the bridge is not allowed to impede the very small number of pleasure craft that use the waterway. Why not just berth them outside the bridge?
Or if that’s too preposterous, why don’t they just put on a continuous shuttle bus? Run it from the start of the Viaduct to the Events Centre on the other side. Simpler, more efficient and far cheaper than the ferry option they’ve just trialled: they could start a shuttle tomorrow.
I asked Eke Panuku, the council agency in charge, and they said, “We have certainly not closed the door on an option of this nature.”
They haven’t done it, either.
Meanwhile, AT has contractors in Herne Bay spending ratepayers’ money to change the existing speed humps so they’re easier to speed over - presumably because drivers of low-slung cars object to having to slow down.
It’s great the mayor has just announced a stronger focus on public transport in his new budget. But you’d think he - or maybe the Ratepayers’ Alliance? – would be jumping up and down about the egregious waste of money in Herne Bay right now.
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.
Much of the South Island is set to plunge below 0C tonight and tomorrow.