The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

…and they’re open to cars again

Well, that didn’t take long.

This was never going to be an easy or uncontroversial project, but this demise still came quicker than I expected. And I don’t exactly consider myself more optimistic than average.

Where did we go wrong?

The boxes and paint appeared at the end of March, just two months ago. The opposition mobilised almost immediately.

A few days later a motorist simply moved the boxes to the side and moved on. But soon after the boxes were fixed somewhat more permanently to the street.

Now to many overseas this may seem like a perfectly mundane trial, however this is almost unheard of in Auckland. Not totally though, there are a few places where rich people managed to have their street blocked off, for example between Green Lane station and One Tree Hill. But by and large you don’t see this in Auckland.

Last week a petition arrived, requesting the trial to be stopped. So there was a meeting about how to continue with this trial.

If you’re interested the agenda is well worth a read, although not very surprising.

33. A total of 1574 people responded to the on-line survey during this period. Of these, 74.5% (1171) did not support the trial, 21% (332) supported it and 4.5% (71) were either neutral, didn’t know or didn’t express an opinion. Early responses to the survey (over the first 3 weeks from March 9) were heavily weighted against the project (8:1 against), but over the past month have dropped to around 3:1 against.

Which is to be expected — people who are indifferent or who are OK with things, tend to shut up. And being online, those responses could come from anywhere, so surveys in the area itself are important.

The trial continued, albeit with one street opened again, but a few days later one resident thought enough is enough, got a forklift, and removed another blockage.

This vandalism has now paid off. Quite sad to see this trial end like that.

Facebook et. al.

Perhaps a tangent, but I wonder what the role of Facebook was. Facebook serves you posts it thinks may be interesting to you, and post it thinks will result in high engagement. Both these parts are important. The first part gives people on both sides the impression almost everyone else shares their opinion.

The second is that things which get high engagement tend to be things that are divisive, things that mess with our emotions. And lots of negativity. If you need a group of angry people, Facebook (and others) will happily recruit them for you, and they’re exceptionally good at it.

One side effect of this trial was the local community group being overrun by angry people, much to the chagrin of people just wanting to discuss, you know, local community stuff.

Culture shock

Since roughly 1955 cars have been the way forward. They were almost as good as teleportation, bringing you kilometres away in any direction you want, in a matter of minutes. Developments like Botany Downs breath this optimism, with their large roadways and intersections ready to funnel all the cars you’d ever want.

Culture has followed this evolution. As the possibility of walking and cycling gets engineered out by road builders, new generations grow up only ever leaving the house inside a car. Footpaths have devolved into vestigial remains of what was once a useful feature. Walking and cycling become things we don’t do over here.

If you watch the behaviour of people on the street you will notice it is a severe faux pas to impede car traffic. Pedestrians jump out of your way if you turn into your driveway. Slowing down for hazards is not a thing because you don’t want to hold up people behind you. By now driving schools started teaching this attitude.

It is against this cultural backdrop that this trial happened. If slowing down and holding up the guy behind you for a few seconds is a misstep, can you imagine blocking an entire street with boxes?

The rest of Auckland

There is also the simple reality that once you walk or ride a bike to the edge of your low traffic neighbourhood, you reach ‘regular Auckland’. Then what? Or how good is public transport in the surroundings? If the rest of the city still forces you to drive, an arrangement like this can become seriously annoying.

But herein lies the catch-22. Arrangements like this are needed to make those other options viable in the first place. This is about making cycling or walking a sane option. And few will take the bus if you can’t walk to the bus stops in a dignified way.

Time

A project like this will always have winners and losers. And while winners tend to be quiet, the losers will be really angry. But this initial negative response always mellows over time. Over time many may find new arrangements which work for them. Maybe you can take the bus after all. Maybe you can park your car on the other side of the barrier. Maybe cycling is viable, however very few people are going to run to the bike shop the day after the trial starts.

There are many advantages you may not notice until after it is gone. Once traffic returns you notice how oppressive traffic noise actually is. And I hope your kids enjoyed the freedom to roam about, because that becomes once again too dangerous.

Give it some time.

Where next? Who will still be willing to try this? It only takes one guy with a forklift and maybe a dozen of petulant drivers to turn this into a serious safety issue. What will happen in the city with the souped up version of this plan, Access for Everyone?

Dammit. Show, don’t tell is usually good advice. Even yours truly was suckered into optimism. Well, it wasn’t the first time. And not the last, I hope.

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