Four in five commuters still driving to work in big New Zealand cities

Friday, 1 November 2019

Kiwis still love driving to work, despite calls to reduce our reliance on cars.

When it comes to getting to work, New Zealanders love to drive.

Roughly four out of five people who need to travel to work in big cities like Auckland and Christchurch usually drive, according to Census 2018 transport data. Experts say that needs to change.

'What we do at the moment is we tend to provide really good roads,' University of Canterbury geography professor Simon Kingham said. 'In most places we don't provide very good alternatives, and where we do people start changing their behaviour.'

Kingham, chief science adviser to the Ministry of Transport, said getting people out of cars would curb greenhouse gas emissions and help address problems like obesity.

* Climate change: New Zealand needs to change its unhealthy dependency on cars

* Our family climate change challenge: Car-free at least once a week

* Cycling to work: I've saved money, carbon emissions - and I'm a better teacher for it**

Statistics NZ figures show more than more than 1.4 million people, or 57.8 per cent of employed adults, drive a private car, truck or van as their main way of getting to work. A further 274,900 said they usually drive in a company vehicle.

BY THE CITY

Of the main centres, Christchurch commuters are the most likely to use vehicles, with 80 per cent choosing to drive.

More than 1.4 million people say the main way they get to work is in a private car, truck or van.

That compared to 76 per cent in Auckland and Dunedin.

Wellington led the way at 44 per cent. There, of the people who travelled to work in the capital (excluding those who work from home), 23.2 per cent took public buses, trains or ferries as their main means of getting to work; a further 21 per cent said they walked or jogged; and 4.3 per cent cycled.

Professor Simon Kingham says there needs to be more investment in other modes of transport to reduce reliance on cars.

In Hamilton 83 per cent drive, while in Tauranga 87 per cent drive.

Dr Glen Koorey, a senior transport planner in Christchurch, said New Zealand was going 'the wrong way' on car reliance.

'If we keep building out rather than up, for example if you live 20km away from your work and there's no decent public transport service, you're probably going to jump in your car, aren't you?'

Wellington was compact and, notwithstanding the recent furore over its bus system, the city had good, established public transport networks. Reducing car reliance elsewhere would mean spending more on public transport, cycle networks and walking areas, Koorey said.

'It's a case of 'if you build it, they will come'. 'So what's often happened is we've built a motorway and they've come in cars.'

In Christchurch, where the council is building a new network of cycleways, about 11,000 travelling workers (about 6 per cent) said they mainly cycled.

Kingham said the Christchurch cycling figures, Wellington walking and public transport figures and public transport figures for parts of Auckland (where 11.76 per cent of people who travelled to work took public buses, trains or ferries) showed when people were given alternatives they used them.

'A lot of people would say 'I have no choice'. And they're absolutely right, they probably don't. So we have to give them choice.'