What was meant to be a five-minute catchup on the letter he sent the AT board in December turned into a full half-hour of unsolicited engineering advice.
This story was first published on Stuff.
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown has advocated spraying oil on unsealed roads and installing “dynamic lanes” on most of the city’s arterial routes.
Brown, who is a qualified civil engineer, provided a range of unsolicited engineering advice to the full board of the council agency Auckland Transport on Tuesday, in a rare and impromptu – perhaps the first-ever – presentation by a mayor.
The mayor’s appearance, at his request, was ostensibly to speak for five minutes about his “Letter of Expectation”, sent to the board in December outlining what the council wants it to focus on.
However in what became a 30-minute presentation, despite mayoral staff trying to get him to his next appointment, Brown revisited many themes close to his heart as an engineer and inner city dweller. They included:
AT should seek advice from Northland on how to build unsealed rural roads. “Oil sprays are a terrific way to handle rural roads – we’ve allowed the environmentalists to say it’s a bad thing.”
Change traffic flows on arterial routes between the morning and evening peak. “In the morning everyone wants to come to town. Make it one bus lane, car-in, car-out and one lane for parking.”
Make cycle lanes cheaper. Use wide footpaths and “paint a strip” down the middle. “I share a 1.2m wide footpath on Hopetoun Bridge with electric scooters, you don’t need 3-4 metre-wide cycleways.”
Do things cheaper. “Everything is over-specc’d, over designed, over safety, over everything. This is not a rich country any more.”
Brown also criticised the Whau Pathway coastal project in the west as over-engineered, too-wide and unnecessarily designed in precast concrete. “Three-quarters” could be knocked-off the price by make it narrower and out of timber. “If the timber one moves up and down a little bit over the years in the mud, then what the hell?”
In response to the mayor telling AT’s board it should put up parking fines immediately, the chairman Wayne Donnelly pointed out that fines were set by the Ministry of Transport.
Brown offered to help – seemingly unaware the issues has been haggled over for years between local and central government, and is currently bundled into a wider piece of policy work at the Ministry.
The mayor appeared to believe Auckland Transport was further down the road of exploring his “dynamic lanes” suggestion than it really is.
AT told Stuff a new dynamic lane may be trialled in “the next 12 or so months, if and where appropriate and feasible”.
“It is important to note that while simple in concept, dynamic lanes are only appropriate under certain conditions, and can be challenging to implement,” said AT in a statement.
The mayor believed dynamic lanes had the potential to “actually do a serious challenge to Auckland Light Rail”.
One of Brown’s questions to the board went unanswered. “Who’s on the board and doesn’t have a heavy traffic (truck) licence?” he asked. “Because you should have an HT licence if you’re going to tell people how to drive a truck, and I’ve got all those,” he said.
Prior to, and shortly after his election in October, Brown had called for AT’s board to resign, and while its chairwoman did immediately and two others followed, the rest have remained, along with the addition of two councillor-directors.