Make it make sense: why axe valuable local projects?

Last week, Matt looked at how the government wants to pour a huge chunk of civic infrastructure funding for a generation  into one mega-road up North, at huge cost and huge opportunity cost.

A smaller but no less important feature of the National Land Transport Plan devised by Minister of Transport Simeon Brown is what the government has chosen not to invest in. As Jonathan Milne recently reported for Newsroom, amongst many other local projects that have been abruptly canned, Simeon Brown has axed funding for crossings and related street safety fixes for over 70 schools across the motu.

Dozens of schools are dismayed to learn they won’t now get speed humps and raised crossings to reduce danger to children.

Wentworth school on the Whangaparāoa Peninsula, in Auckland’s north, has been pleading for a raised crossing on busy Gulf Harbour Drive for five years. This year, at 8.30am on a busy Friday morning, a pedestrian was seriously injured while families were making their way to school.

So too at Ranui primary school in West Auckland, where pleas for a raised crossing and other urgent action weren’t addressed in time to save a five-year-old boy from serious injury this year.

“He was run over by a car in a 50kph zone,” says Ranui principal Teressa Smith. “Speed calming interventions are important to make sure drivers are not just aware it is a school zone, but to deliberately slow cars down.”

…

These are among 15 schools in our biggest, busiest city, for which Auckland Transport engineers were processing requests for speed humps or raised crossings. They’re among more than 70 schools nationwide that were waiting for councils to confirm funding.

Those processes all ground to a halt on Monday, when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the National Land Transport Fund would no longer contribute to speed humps, at all. The minister says “key highlights” of the $32.9 billion investment programme will be reducing funds for cycleways, and removing funding entirely for speed “bumps”, as he calls them.

This got me thinking: politicians rightly love to cut ribbons and have their names on things. But where do we install the plaques explaining what’s not been built, and why, and who decided? Why not commemorate the Minister’s proud record of achievement in removing things that “inconvenience motorists” to serve his strategic goal of “economic growth and productivity”?

It’s hard not to wonder if children and young people count as things that “inconvenience motorists”; they certainly don’t seem to qualify as productive. Yet, as Kiri Turketo, the executive principal of the 1300-pupil Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate in Ōtara, put it to Newsroom:

“When we talk about the barriers to learning, as principal, I am discussing the very real ability for our children to get to school safely … In amongst our students are the next great leaders and entrepreneurs of Aotearoa New Zealand – if they ever make it safely across the road to school.”

This isn’t just speculation: for years, she’s been asking for “digital speed warning signs, yellow lines and raised crossings”:

Turketo manages 150 staff and a $16m budget, but doesn’t have legal authority to ensure her pupils’ safety as they cross the road to class. So the collegiate, which has distinct junior, middle and senior schools, has been operating “illegal road patrols” stopping traffic on the road outside, even though there’s no pedestrian crossing.

“How many times do our kids have to get hit before the ministry or Auckland Transport does something about it?” she asks. “Ten or 12 years ago, a student was killed because a parent came hooning around the corner and lost control of the car and went up onto the sidewalk.”

An own-goal for the coalition government

The great irony is that many of these cancelled school safety projects – and similar plans to make local streets calmer and nicer – have been avidly advocated for by people who are now in government. How must it feel, for those communities, watching government snatch back progress?

One such community is Horowhenua – where, as Jonathan Milne reports in a related article, local (National) MP Tim Costley put his weight behind requests for traffic-calming for Taitoko school in Levin:

Tim Costley served for the Air Force in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. But now the National MP finds himself a different kind of hero. And he’s an uncomfortably reluctant hero.

Horowhenua District Council says the MP requested the council install speed control humps outside Levin’s Taitoko School, where cars speed around the corner at enormous risk to the school’s 220 pupils. The school’s principal Renee Taipari reckons he went out on a limb for them.

The uncomfortable bit, for Costley, is that the Government campaigned against speed humps and, this week, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced they’d defund them all. Never mind, jokes Costley, they’ll just get out there with a brush and a can of white paint…

Or to give another, more local example: in 2021, in her role as local MP,  Erica Stanford (now Minister of Education) petitioned Auckland Transport to hurry up and fix a dangerous roundabout in her community – featuring raised crossings on all four legs as a vital safety feature for young and elderly people.

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In the petition, Stanford pointed out:

This roundabout causes safety concerns for residents of Aria Bay Retirement Village and users of the RSA, Browns Bay Bowling Club and Browns Bay Taiaotea Kindergarten who need to cross at this very busy intersection. Those affected, and travellers alike, have experienced several near-misses and are very concerned a fatal accident could happen at any time.

Updated to add: as noted by a commenter (thanks!) Stanford has also successfully advocated for a 30kph speed reduction at a dangerous bend outside a rest home in her electorate. Bravo!

And yet, as drafted, her colleague’s speed-setting rule would ban this as an option – even though plentiful 30kmh zones already exist, given it’s the recognised safe limit for pedestrians and other vulnerable people on the streets. It’s not too late to adapt to the evidence.  

To be clear: this is not a “gotcha” – it’s a “what gives??” These two National MPs, and likely others now in government, have shown exemplary leadership by advocating for the needs of vulnerable – indeed, precious – people in their community. This is moral advocacy. So it must be gutting for those communities to now witness the backtracking.

The good news – for the people of Browns Bay, at least – is that Auckland Transport did hurry up and build a better roundabout at Beach Rd and Bute Rd. It’s there now, connecting locals safely to shops, apartments, the bowling club, a kindergarten and several bus stops. And surely some of the credit for this goes to the local National MP.

The (political) risks of culture wars over safe streets

However! Browns Bay kindergarteners and bowling-club silver foxes can’t relax just yet.

What’s particularly shocking about the current direction of travel by the coalition government on local streets and local decisions, is not just that they’ve axed funding for transformative local fixes like this one. It’s that they’ve specifically enabled funding to REMOVE transformative local fixes like this one!

Let’s be clear. This is highly unusual stuff, as policy-making goes. But it does fit the pattern of this government seeking to undo local choices it objects to, regardless of the cost of doing so. See also: compulsory reversion to unsafe urban speed limits, now called out by international road safety experts (and compulsory referenda on Māori representation on local councils, and more).

You have to wonder what freshly minted government MPs make of this mismatch between their duty to local advocacy, and these centralised diktats that undo local projects. It must likewise be uncomfortable for senior Nats coaxed out of retirement and/or installed on boards to praise and/or oversee programmes that undermine work they once proudly extolled for its social and economic value. What price a legacy?

This is a government seriously at odds with itself, and its history – and also, its future.

Because, the thing that really puzzles me is: almost all of these now-cancelled community-led projects like local safety, public transport and active modes would have been delivered just in time for smiling candidates to cut ribbons in the run-up to the next election

In other words: cancelling all these small local shovel-ready projects isn’t just harmful to the communities that asked for them. At a really basic level, it’s a form of political self-harm.

.In purely expedient political terms, these are really easy wins. They demonstrate the beneficence of government, and generate appealing photo opportunities like the ones above, all over the motu. Most people likely won’t recall who started something nice, but they will remember who delivered it.

Those young superheroes who biked the pink path with Simon Bridges? They’ll remember that as a big day.

He’s now chair of Waka Kotahi NZTA, overseeing a Grinchy government agenda set by a guy who’s cancelling crossings at places where kids have been harmed, making public transport costlier for young people, starving cities of “frills” like safe crossings, rain gardens, comfortable bus shelters and bike networks…and turning a blind eye to climate.

And they’re now old enough to vote. What is the political end-game of this culture war nonsense?

Reality check

What gives me confidence that this is probably just an odd (albeit international-headline-grabbing) blip in our usually quite sensible governing class, is the certainty that most people actually want things this government calls “nice-to-have.”

The clue is in the name. It’s nice to have quieter streets. To be able to safely cross the road to a bus stop or your local shop. To feel free to let your kids walk, bike or scoot to school or the dairy. To be able to relax and read the news on a bus rather than sit seething in traffic. To not fret about a family member or pet being taken out by a speedy rat-runner. To hop on a bike and get to work exactly on time, every day. To opt for an e-bike as your second car. To catch a bus to the shops and back again.

All these things are nice, normal and neighbourly – be wary of anyone who’s trying to tell you otherwise. They might be taking advantage of the fact we tend to underestimate support and overestimate opposition on progressive things like climate action – and we’re primed to mistake a loud minority opinion for the majority.

Thankfully, last week RNZ and even the NZ Herald aired some basic facts about investing in bike networks. Contrary to Simeon Brown’s reckons, New Zealanders are by no means “sick and tired” of cycleways. Indeed, those of us who live in cities, are more likely to be sick and tired of not having cycleways!

The most recent NZTA/ Waka Kotahi stats are very clear on this. (Quick, download ’em, lest they disappear!)

So, what can we do now?

This bizarre central government funding arrangement is pretty much locked in for the next couple of years. The temptation may be to cry or rage, and both are totally valid reactions! We can also channel that energy to keep talking about this stuff with friends, family, workmates.

• Point out that these policies are highly peculiar, and well out of step with our peer nations, to the point they’re a bit embarrassing.
• Point out the Minister is wrong when he claims full support for defunding back-to-basics fundamentals, like footpaths and safe crossings.
• Discuss how messed up it is to say you’re “helping New Zealanders get where they’re going” by making it more dangerous for New Zealanders to cross the road to school or ride a bike to work. That’s incoherent.
• Ask why parties in government are pouring dollars into social media posts designed to rark up antagonism towards people just trying to get where they’re going on our streets. That’s not cool, New Zealand’s too small for that.
• Keep reminding everyone that this government’s take on safety and transport choice don’t even stack up by their own standards. We all know there’s nothing less productive than a road closed for hours to mop up after yet another crash. Or city streets full of traffic because people have no choice but to add another car to the jam.

Also, keep talking about it with your elected representatives. Local elections are next year; national ones the year after. It’s never to soon to make your feelings known.

• If your council has targeted rates for safe streets and/or climate-friendly transport projects (kia ora, Tāmaki Makaurau!), you may be lucky enough to see good projects continuing to roll out. Keep tabs on what’s happening – send congrats when good things are built, and if work slows down, ask why.
• Drop a polite line to your MP, whatever their political stripe. Describe what your community needs, and ask for their help in procuring it. If, like Erica Stanford or Tim Costley, they’ve been advocating on your behalf – thank them!
• Thank them for their advocacy even – or especially – if plans have just been cancelled by their transport minister colleague. Ask how they personally plan to protect what’s been achieved, and progress what’s needed. These are reasonable questions. Plus, politics is a merry-go-round and you never know who’ll be next Minister of Transport.

In each case, share your own stories – because they’re true, and generally more persuasive than bare stats.

And above all, hold onto this: it’s nice, normal and neighbourly to want – and to receive – stress-free streets and heaps of good transport choices. These things cost a fraction of the total transport budget. They deliver overdue fixes to historic problems. They set us up well for future generations. And they just make sense.

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