The Wrong Side of my Car
The blog that wants to go obsolete
Is driving for the rich too?
After creating that cycling mode share map, why not get them for other ways to get around as well? *1
First, walking:
This shows the value of central locations. Every area unit with more than 20% is in the city centre or the immediately surrounding areas (Newton, Grafton, Freemans Bay, etc). Newmarket stands out as well, and coincidence or not, lots of apartments there.
And a scatter plot:
Interesting one. The CBD is easily recognisable in the upper right (the two area units are straddling bin 9 and 10 on the deprivation score). As are the few ‘walkable’ area units. The latter are a bit biased towards the left, i.e. rich.
And now, for cars *2:
Excuse the burning red—I thought it looks cool on the walking and cycling maps.
Well, don’t we all love to drive? The central city stands out due to its high walking mode share (it stands out on the map for cycling for the same reason). Westgate (northwest) and south east Auckland are just that little more extreme than the rest.
The surprise comes with the scatter plot. Driving is expensive so normally you will see poor people drive less:
So, is driving for the rich? Well… not really. There is a very slight falloff in the cluster at the top. The small cluster of more ‘walkable’ areas also follows the expected downwards trend but it stops well short of the right side of that plot *3. As Councillor Efeso Collins pointed out, we have to be careful with things like fuel tax and congestion pricing.
Finally, bus and train:
No surprises here. Pretty bad indictment of public transport in the south east. Contrary to popular belief public transport is not for the poor (see scatter plot and quantiles). Public transport usage actually drops off a bit in the poorest areas.
So yeah, while claims like “the poor have to drive” sound absurd given how expensive that is, the census doesn’t exactly disprove that idea.
The full list of responses in the census, with the ones used in italic:
- Worked at Home
- Did Not Go to Work Today
- Drove a Private Car Truck or Van
- Drove a Company Car Truck or Van
- Passenger in a Car Truck Van or Company Bus
- Public Bus
- Train
- Motor Cycle or Power Cycle
- Bicycle
- Walked or Jogged
- Other
I counted ‘driving a private car’, and ‘driving a company car’ but not ‘passenger in a car’. The graph is pretty much the graph for walking upside down.
What’s more, this is probably intentional. We have single housing zone (sometimes with heritage overlay) on just 2 km from the town hall—that is nominally one house per 600 m². Six-hundred! At over $1000 per m² that will keep the so-called Undesirable Elements out for sure. It is a bit disturbing to have both this zoning and a fuel tax in place.
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