World-famous cities architect Jan Gehl had a plan to turn Wellington into Copenhagen

Friday, 8 March 2019

Henriette Vamberg still remembers what it was like setting up Wellington's plan to turn itself into Copenhagen. Just.

Lambton Quay where cars still reign despite Jan Gehl's report favouring boulevards and pedestrian-friendly streets.

And she remembers the city and what it looked like: 'Parking and very wide roads.'

At the time Wellington had 15,833 parking spaces in its CBD compared to Copenhagen's 3100.

Through a period of about six months Vamberg and world-famous cities expert Jan Gehl, who is now 83-years-old, would fly between Denmark and Wellington putting together one of the city's most comprehensive reports on how pedestrians move around the city.

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Some of the report's suggestions, especially around the waterfront have been implemented, but other more important ones to connect the city up to the waterfront through the narrowing of Jervois Quay, had languished.

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The bill for the report would come to $72,500, relatively cheap for a firm regarded as the world's foremost experts on pedestrianisation. A price property developer Ian Cassels thinks likely came at a 'discounted rate' with the thought that more work would follow.

But much of that work didn't follow. Vamberg has barely visited Wellington since and many of the report's largest suggestions sit undelivered - although council staff and the Mayor say they will re-emerge in the city's long-awaited Let's Get Welly Moving plan.

The 88-page report came with over 20 pages of recommendations and 30 pages of observations about everything from jaywalking to the dearth of nightlife on Lambton Quay.

Behind the report was a desire to increase social interaction and retain Wellington's title as New Zealand's cultural capital according to then-Mayor Kerry Prendergast.

Prendergast had devoured works on cities as engines of creative capital and thought more pedestrian areas might be a way to push people into collaborating with each other in a modern society where people were becoming increasingly closed off from each other.

Vamberg and Gehl would fly to New Zealand for a two-week stretch to work on information gathered by a team of New Zealand collaborators.

The end result was published to much 'backslapping' and public excitement when it was presented in 2004, Cassels says.

'It sounded right to a lot of people.'

Copenhagen is designed to be pedestrian and cyclist friendly.

At the core of the plan was a recommendation to narrow those very wide roads Vamberg and Gehl had been struck by into boulevards populated by people, bicycles, and green space.

The roads targeted for the treatment include Cambridge and Kent terraces, Taranaki St, and Jervois Quay.

Jervois Quay in particular was singled out, with its multi-laned roads, for preventing pedestrians having easy access to the waterfront.

The creation of a central city cycle network was also part of the plans with cycle lanes taking up part of the boulevard space.

Turning Wellington's urban motorways into boulevards was part of Gehl's plan.

Individual streets that made up Wellington's Golden Mile would be linked up better with pedestrians taking priority over road traffic at crossings.

And on Lambton Quay vehicle access would be banned except for at night, footpaths widened out, and parking removed.

The waterfront, which had carparking at the time, would be pedestrianised with developments put up on the waterfront to give people something to do as they strolled past the water.

And that same focus on the pedestrian experience at eye-level would filter through the report's suggestions

Sixty per cent of street-level retailers and offices should be transparent at eye-level the report said, and all should remain lit until midnight.

And these street level businesses shouldn't have blank spaces of wall but give pedestrians something to look at while they passed.

The report came to many of its conclusions by observing Wellington's pedestrians as they went about their daily and nightly routines in the central city.

It observed how many jaywalked (answer: 576 on Vivian St during a weekday lunch hour) and proposed changes to traffic light timings.

Patrick Morgan of the Cycling Action Network said some of the suggestions, especially around the waterfront had been implemented.

But other more important ones to connect the city up to the waterfront better through the narrowing of Jervois Quay, had languished.

Cassels said the Gehl report at its heart had acknowledged Wellington as a great city with large numbers of pedestrians but with problems that needed fixing, many which still need to be fixed today.

'You won't remember driving past down Jervois Quay looking at something, there'll be no smell, there'll be no atmosphere, there'll be no nothing about that.

'The parts of the city you remember are not when you're sitting in a car looking at something it's always walking somewhere, meeting someone, going around the corner and having a cup of coffee.'