This is an update of progress to our open letter, asking Auckland Transport to return to the consulted and support plans for the Integration Project of the Karanga-a-Hape station police station after its last-minute changes.
So far, we have had over 80 people and the organizations sign. Thanks to everyone who got in touch and, if you want to sign up, send an email to: admin@greerauuckland.org.nz
We will send next week.
For today, I will do two things with this post.
First, I will explain why it is important that this project, even if it is too small, is restored to its original plans.
Second, we found it valuable to share some of the comments, which were anonymous, which we received from people who signed our letter.
Why this situation is important
I remember a conversation, soon after he initially announced that they were not moving forward with what was a highly supported pedestrian mall at the Upper Mercury Lane, where someone asked me: “It’s not a good commitment to transform it into a shared space now and then turn it into a pedestrian mall when CRL opens?”
My answer, it wasn’t. No, it’s not.
In your face, it sounds good, but it’s actually extremely problematic. When you approve of any change in a city, it is much better to use the period of turbulence it brings to approve the view you want to see instead of some intermediate state that makes no one happy.
We need a public square for pedestrians outside Mercury Lane CRL station because CRL (NZ’s largest transportation project for $ 5.5 billion) will make thousands of people spread the streets. This will happen and therefore the street needs to change to accommodate it. Project K did the right thing – intended to achieve a vision of a pedestrian friendly area, and the supported plans would reach this vision.
If you return to an intermediate point, you create a new status quo, from which the same people who originally oppose you will require unchanged.
Simon Wilson, in his article last week about all this disaster ($$$), had great lines about it:
Mercury Lane will reopen before the CRL opening, with yellows permanently. Once the trains are running, they will evaluate if they need to apply what they call “modal filter”: put the posts to stop cars.
But, I said, this will allow traffic to restore the habit of using the street and, instead of creating a welcoming environment for passengers before CRL, they will assemble a dangerous.
This is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.
Burt replied that the shared spaces work better than that and gave the example of the Federal St, by Sky City. He could not have chosen anything worse. The Federal ST is not a suitable shared space, it is a street for cars that have no clearly marked trails.
Also, this idea of a ‘commitment’ ignores the larger image – This is not the only time this happened.
In fact, one and again senior leadership in the delay of transport from Auckland, mine and will water plans. Hayden Donnell’s 2022 article in Metro on AT editions is an incredible view of that, and I can’t recommend it enough. But I want to extract this passage:
These managers are often described as a “clay layer” obstructing progress. Sources from the inside for junior employees regularly present ambitious plans that meet strategic goals, just to see them “death for a thousand cuts” while filtering the strata of the administration. “You are working with intermediate managers, line managers and executives. At each stage, the strategy is diluted,” says one contractor at AT.
The K Project is an example of a didactic book of this at work. The project team worked with the community, developed a well thought out plan that will transform the area according to the broader strategy, the wishes of the community and what the practical realities will be on the ground.
They also worked with the local community and stakeholders to make reasonable commitments that address concerns and make people aspirations. It will never be perfect, for example, there may be some cross street charging zones that still need to be adjusted a little, but the K Project core was solid.
And then, as they did one and over again, Senior Management comes, this ‘clay layer’, first with the pedestrian mall and now with the rest at Cross Street, Canada Street and East Street, to crush the broader view of this project.
As these last -minute changes produced such a public stir, what we could see has happened now with the K Project is the transport of Auckland, it may seem to do ‘redesign’ to address the concerns of a angry majority that they were engaged.
But if you accept 10/10 plans, turn them into 1/10 plans just to ‘redesign’ to be 4/10 plans as a ‘commitment’, you are not really fixing things.
Frankly speaking, this is what will probably try to do.
And this is the “death for a thousand cuts”, only this time we explode to be much more visible.
Our letter calls for the restoration for the highly supported and consulted on plans and projects. It does not require a ‘midfield’, because the AT Project team had already made the hard mahi necessary to implement trade-offs as impairment, ensuring that the main view of the plan remained.
Plans 10/10 (ie, those consulted) They were the ‘intermediate’.
Who knows how long, energy and money are being wasted because of this disaster, inside and outside it. However, at the moment, in the course you can reverse and just deliver the plans consulted for this project (which allows me to remind it is under construction now).
Fortunately we would support them by doing so and defended them against the vocal minority.
I also know that now, people who oppose themselves to change our city for the better will be pressuring to continue with their terrible changes.
But there are many more people who, like us, would like to support the right thing because they wanted the original project.
And here is what some of them said
We want to reiterate why the original plan has been so supported, why people are so concerned about these changes, and why they should feel safe in the reversal course, so that we include these, along with other comments that people have sent (all anonymous) as an appendage with our letter next week.
Here are some of them:
I am a mother with 2 school children who ride or regularly walk around the area and along the cross Street.
Our apartment looks at Cross Street, and I’m horrified when thinking about how the chaos will look down there, especially at night at SAT or Friday, when there are many pedestrians and drunk cars with less sober drivers that cause chaos. Refusing to make the street more friendly to pedestrians will definitely result in injuries or accidents during busy night time, not to mention traffic during the day.
The lack of transparency and subversion of the political process to satisfy a minority goes against what I argue. The question I would be putting is who they are most afraid of legal actions, a minority or the wider audience. I’m sure there are several people willing to keep this.
K RD district is where I live, work, earring and cycle, and I was totally dismayed with the progressive degradation of what was a great plan for my neighborhood.
It is not only disappointing that safer and more attractive characteristics are suddenly discarded, but seems highly irregular to change parts materially from the plan without discussions or additional analysis. As a payer of longtime fees, public transport user, roads and cycle paths, I am concerned that a process that seemed robust and transparent is flawed and open to manipulation so it seems to be a handful of individuals.
Fully support the original plans for the urban integration of the AT station. I travel to the west every weekend and it was informed by my field of study and personal life style, I believe any decision to reverse the original plans will negatively impact social accessibility and therefore my own use of the season.
While I’m in the area of Otara Papatoetoe, the other day I was thinking about how useful it would be to get the train to the city and get off on K-Road if you’re going towards a destination at Great North Road. I think Auckland transport is seriously underestimating how many people will use K-Road station as a means of putting bicycles on the hill makes the bike path very important.
The K Project offers a unique opportunity to capitalize on the city’s rail loop and this should not be wasted
It challenges the mind that we spend $ 5 billion on a public transport system to focus on cars where people access it.
It is a waste of time and money if the sensible collaborative planning give way to a last -minute design conceived by one or two stakeholders.
I am equally immensely dismayed by the AO march reversal on the fully consulted and agreed plan.
Currently, I work in K RD and ride a bicycle in Avondale. When the train station opens, I will be training (in those rainy days) or riding a bike (in those beautiful sunny days). The design of design to the station affects me rain or sun, and I would love that the original plans be restored.
I understand that this is being renovated, so perhaps these things finally stop, but if we want to make sure these reforms are effective and not just some bureaucratic shuffles, this culture, system and senior leadership operated must be actively and intentionally changed. The only way to do this is to call it, every time it is virtually possible, and I hope that those who shape reforms will see and understand the central problems of ATs are – because most people are really great, and anyone is able to change for the better.
But for now, you need to do the right thing and restore the original plans of the K Project. If they do it, I promise I will be the first to celebrate them for it, and I will be the first to defend themselves to defend them, although it does not seem to want a better city.
And if you want to join me to ask this, contact your name to our letter:
admin@greaterauuckland.org.nz
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