The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

Safe School Street in Birkdale

Auckland Transport is running a trial arrangement at Birkdale Primary School. The project page even has some Vision Zero buzz words on it.

Auckland Transport is taking a Vision Zero approach to road safety. This means we are striving to have zero deaths or serious injuries on our transport system by 2050. To achieve this, we are working to create a more forgiving road network that recognises that we are human and make mistakes. But those mistakes should not mean someone dies or is seriously injured on our roads.

We have used material and colours that enhance the vibrancy of the area. This serves both as an effective and visual queue (sic) to motorists, that they are entering an area with lots of people moving around, and to add to the character of Birkdale Primary School and its surrounding neighbourhoods.

On the ground (literally) we see flower patterns and bollards, mainly to take away excessive road width, especially at the intersection. Making crossing the intersection less dangerous due to cars turning at high speed. These are welcome changes to anyone who has a kid walking to that school. Even with the build-outs Birkdale Road still has a very generous 7.5 m width.

A possible concern is that it doesn’t look like you can ride your bicycle between the bollards. This is not a place where you want a pinch point while the school zone chaos is in full swing. I was however not in a position to test this, and if it is a problem it is easy to fix.

Coming in from Salisbury Road, the first signs were not from Auckland Transport, but from a few angry people living nearby.

Look at that. The opposition to Auckland Transport actually created a logo of sorts. Somehow this is not surprising at all.

Well, it is nice to for once have an alternative to the stern look and crossed arms.

I suspect the speed bump forcing people to actually slow down was a bit much for them. But don’t underestimate the symbolic value of putting anything in the way of Our Cars.

I’m kind of on the fence. It is neat that there is some effort to sanitize the street network, and especially the stupidly wide turning curves at intersections really need to be sanitized. And interventions like these are dirt cheap, so why not try a few things.

On the other hand, why not do something useful with the extra space and create a bike lane?

Speed limits

Tangentially related, there is a consultation underway for a second round of speed limit changes. This is something else that needs to be sanitized. There is one change nearby: Verran Road, Between the school and the weird intersection, drops down to 30 km/h.

Feedback is mixed, with some supporting and others arguing that the current 50 km/h speed limit works perfectly fine thank you very much. However…

We’re on a small residential street, at most about 1 km away from the main road. Why would you bother? Would you risk driving this fast just centimetres from parked cars?

Getting to the point

These discussions are often a waste of time. Both sides of these arguments make perfect sense once you undertand the underlying assumptions.

For many, using your car to get around is as natural as using your feet to walk. You don’t have to think about whether you are going to walk on your feet or on your hands today. Similarly, if you go out, the first question is not how. It is where can we park the car. Distances are measured not in kilometres, but by minutes driving. (look at any real estate brochures). And indeed, most streets of Auckland has about the same amount of foot traffic as Pripyat — none.

So if nobody uses streets for anything else than driving, what is the point of all of this?

It feels like it has always been this way, but just 100 years ago, when automobiles started to be popular it would have been unthinkable. Barely more than a human lifespan. Cities have existed for 10,000 years, and during almost all that time streets were spaces where people just went about their own business.

The most comparable thing we have today are malls.

Now imagine this. You’re shopping around in your local mall and suddenly someone comes in driving a car through the hallway. A few minutes later, another one. Can you imagine how disruptive and dangerous this would be? Well, that is the story of our streets. People did not like it, to put it mildly. This conflict was solved by educating the next generation of people that the street is now a space for the serious business of driving, and not all this other fluffy stuff like talking or playing or shopping. And within one generation the change got pretty much ingrained.

Some people are starting to think this change was a mistake. They are now asking the real question.

What is a street? And who is it for?

Is it simply a space to move cars? Or is there more to it?

Which brings us back to those two discussions above. Once you answer this question, the answer to those discussions is completely obvious. You will also sound like a complete nutcase to people with a different answer.

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