Bus Ban Mad Or Genius?

in Bus by Jon C — May 26, 2010 at 7:30 am | 6 comments

Wellington’s local body election is going to see a terrific debate about the role of public transport and pedestrians in an inner city.

I’ve been following property investor Sir Bob Jones’ enthusiastic endorsements of turning Wellington’s inner city into a vibrant, quirky pedestrian mall where buses and cars are banned.

Because the plan is so uncompromising, it’s slightly mad but rather inspiring.

He has assembled a group of people who will campaign on this issue.

It’s appears to be the group’s only election plank or at least it’s the only issue it has declared so far.

The one- time colourful national political figure and wealthy businessman himself won’t stand because he owns 10 major CBD buildings and sees a potential conflict of interest should he become Mayor. Good on him for his integrity but a pity.

Jones’ plan is for the streets to be for people. He imagines cafes in the street where cars and buses used to travel,  a popular market place, maybe even an ice skating ring.

Possibly at some point later on,  he could see a couple of trams to get people from one end of town to another, or some form of modern light rail. But he adds that he has also seen overseas where trams get in the way of pedestrians enjoying the freedom of a mall.

His ideas have been inspired by his travels not just through familiar pedestrian-friendly European countries but some Eastern European countries where new experiments have created an interesting cityscape by letting pedestrians wander the streets.

To those who point out Wellington’s weather doesn’t feel friendly for outdoor cafes in the middle of Lambton Quay, Jones points out that the same applies to European cities which have even more bitter winters than Wellington’s.

And he says across the Tasman, the further extension of Brisbane’s Queen St as a pedestrian mall has been a success story.

He also points out that Cuba St as a pedestrian space was done decades ago and if it hadn’t been, it could well be a dead part of town.

The big irony in the scheme is this. Should his Vibrant Wellington team win the election against incumbent Kerry Prendergast, seeking her 4th term, they will take office just as buses get ready to return to Manners Mall. The final legal hurdles have been cleared for the city council to go ahead with its plan to mix buses and pedestrians there, in the once pedestrian-only street.

And buses is where it gets tricky.

We can easily envisage Lambton Quay with no cars.

The contentious part of the scheme is when it comes to the issues of buses versus pedestrians.

Jones argues that buses and pedestrians are a terrible mix, and interrupts the Manners Mall policy of the council as one of making the city friendly towards buses rather than to its citizens.

He puts forward an interesting thesis that buses are for suburbs not the city and so need only a couple of city depots at which people can get on and off as they travel to the suburbs and city and back.

He’s dismissive of rows of buses tundering through the city streets at present, sometimes half empty but all subsidised by the council, a fact that irks him greatly.

Wellington’s Chamber of Commerce CEO Charles Finny has expressed caution about the idea:

“I share Sir Bob’s desire for a good-looking, vibrant city with lots of public spaces. I also admire the European-style cities that Wellington is beginning to resemble and that our relatively compact nature tends us towards. But I am not convinced we yet have a sufficiently large population density, which typifies European cities, to sustain the vitality of a pedestrian road as long and large as the Golden Mile. The last thing we want is a dead zone.

Parts of the Golden Mile are so wide that it might not be a good look. Too large a pedestrian area might also dilute the appeal of the existing public spaces we already have. (Even Barcelona’s Las Ramblas and Zurich’s Bahnhoffstrasse might lose their appeal if neighbouring streets were pedestrianised.)

There is plenty of scope to beautify the city and increase public spaces without pedestrianising the Golden Mile and adding to existing congestion. I think the council has done some good things in this regard in recent years. The proposal to extend Cuba Mall as a “shared space”, the creation of Civic Square and the waterfront developments are cases in point. There is also potential to plant more trees, create more sculptures and fountains and introduce public squares and wider footpaths (where roads are sufficiently wide).

These proposals are far more sensible than banning cars.
Buses are often denigrated as an inferior mode of public transport but as technology progresses and buses modernise and become smaller and less obtrusive, there is increasingly less to distinguish them from light rail other than that they travel on rubber as opposed to metal wheels. Modern buses running along the Golden Mile “public transport spine” could look just as good. We already enjoy a hugely improved bus service as a result of the investments made by New Zealand Bus. We can expect continuing improvements.

The issue is all about balance. The city has to look good but it also has to function properly and it needs to facilitate economic growth. Wellington’s compact nature means that scarce road space needs to be used wisely thus limiting the scope for car-less roads.

Personally, I would hate to see the idea done half-heartedly because that is what so often happens, when councils tinker with the idea of a mall.

Or they lose faith, as happened in Onehunga.

Turning Queen St or part of it into a pedestrian mall has been an argument for decades.

Such a compromise was made recently by making Queen St more pedestrian friendly with wider footpaths and more pedestrian crossings, which have more frequent than normal cross now signalling for pedestrians.

All that is commendable and there are moves going on to create shared spaces around the fringes of Queen St but the main street still feels dreary, lifeless and uninviting.

Jones also sees an argument still for Auckland to close off Queen St at least from Victoria St down and to incorporate High St.

I wish Auckland councillors had bold ideas like this - well, actually not really that bold when you look at dozens of overseas countries that are getting truly pedestrian friendly, beyond spending millions on pockets of shared spaces, which has been a commendable and far-sighted policy of the present council.

This coming council election needs bold visions for the city instead of the tired old keep-things-as-they-are approach.
Rodney Hide has turned the local government structure upside down to shake out the dead wood and turn Auckland into a vibrant modern economic city, without the divisive fragmentation that has seen the nonsense of debates like what to do with Queens Wharf. That debate typically remains unresolved.

But it may be in Wellington where a vibrant council team that lives up to its name, shows us what can really be done.

Tags: Go Bus Manners Mall pedestrians Sir Bob Jones Vibrant Wellington Wellington Wellington City Council