Golden Mile plan fails to meet two main goals

Tuesday, 11 July 2023

Let’s Get Wellington Moving images show what pedestrianising the city’s Golden Mile might look like.

Tim Brown represents the Motukairangi/Eastern General Ward on Wellington City Council.

OPINION: The Golden Mile affray appears polarising, but it’s not ‘’do something’’ versus ‘’do nothing’’.

Labour and Green councillors and the mayor had the votes to back the Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) Golden Mile proposal based on the narrative of ‘’we must do something. There is no alternative. The Government is dangling $4 billion to improve the region’s transport woes and if we spit this dummy, we could lose that money. In any case, fewer cars means lower emissions and central Wellington will swarm with happy shoppers once footpaths are wider. And it will cost only $140 million“.

The seven independent councillors (John Apanowicz, Diane Calvert, Ray Chung, Sarah Free, Tony Randle, Nicola Young and me) agree something needs doing, but we don’t support the LGWM consultants’ plans.

It’s obvious Manners and Courtenay need major work and, with tweaks, the LGWM plan for those streets could have had unanimous councillor support. We offered compromises, but these were not accepted.

The area of dispute was Lambton Quay (almost nothing is planned for Willis so whether it gets done or not hardly matters).

The consultants’ analysis of the changes proposed for Lambton Quay found major benefits for pedestrians, but the analysis was subjective and flimsy. As one councillor said during the debate, ‘’What is the why? Lambton Quay is good for pedestrians now, why are we spending millions on changes?’’

We’re told wider footpaths will attract visitors to central Wellington. But how will they get there? And why would they come when shops and services would be more accessible elsewhere?

It’s claimed that improvements to Auckland’s lower Queen St and waterfront area are a boon for retail, and central Wellington can anticipate the same. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. The huge upgrade of Auckland rail (and its population growth) is increasing the number of people visiting the central city. Undoubtedly once there, those people like the wider footpaths.

The problem for Wellington is that there is no rail project about to bring in more people and improvements to bus services seem to be on permanent hold. Removing cars with no alternative is hardly going to connect central Wellington to the region.

Lambton Quay is upgraded with greenery, wide footpaths, bike lanes and bus only access in this visualisation from Let's Get Wellington Moving.

Another difference between Auckland and LGWM’s plan is that Auckland Transport worked with business interests. Owners of retail, hospitality and property had a say in what was done.

The overwhelming opposition of businesses and property owners on the Golden Mile speaks both to the LGWM plan and how it was formulated.

Those who voted for the Golden Mile project say the council needs to accept the plan (despite its shortcomings) to avoid derailing $4b of Government funding which has been offered to sort out Wellington’s wider transport problems.

There are errors in this thinking. There is no signed contract between the council and Government and, although ex-minister Michael Wood supported spending billions for a rail link with south Wellington, minister David Parker is already talking about financial constraints and the need to prioritise fixing roads. Of the four main parties in parliament, only the Greens are committed to anti-car/pro-passenger-rail spending.

Whatever the consequences for the Government’s $4b of future funding, progressing the Golden Mile means several local roads projects will be postponed due to limits on available funds. The council’s budget for City Streets over FY24-25 has been cut from $33.8 million to $4.8m to accommodate the Golden Mile cost blowout.

But should the council see the Golden Mile as being taking one for the team so that Wellington gets $4b of Government funding for the bigger transport projects? The alternative view (as expressed by the Chamber of Commerce) is that the Golden Mile proposal should be judged by the highest standards because there is so much more to come.

The chamber noted the doubling in cost, the non-existence of an economic impact study, the poor consultation and the very adverse feedback from the business sector.

Tim Brown: “No plan for the Golden Mile will win universal support. Even the upgrade of Courtenay/Manners that we support would find plenty of opponents.”

Surely this is a wake-up call that we need to rethink LGWM before we end up with the same mistakes being repeated with the bigger projects ahead?

So we don’t believe it’s necessary to ‘’swallow the rat’’ of the LGWM Golden Mile project to win Government backing for the wider transport investment Wellington desperately needs. We think LGWM needs to be restructured so it is accountable to Wellingtonians and their elected representatives.

We suspect that the new transport minister, and whoever fills that seat after October, also agrees that change to LGWM is necessary.

To turn to what is wrong with the Golden Mile plan. Initially there were two main goals with the project, to improve public transport infrastructure and to help decarbonise transport. Neither is achieved by the $140m plan endorsed by the Labour and Green councillors and mayor.

The LGWM consultants calculate that there will be a modest reduction in emissions from fewer people coming into the central city. But for the people who do still come, journeys will be longer and their emissions higher.

But the worst feature of the plan is the lack of improvements for users of the buses. The consultants estimate that the trip from the rail station to Courtenay Place will take two minutes less because five bus stops are to be removed. But because stops will be further apart, average walking and waiting times will be 3½ minutes longer.

Tim Brown: “The overwhelming opposition of businesses and property owners on the Golden Mile speaks both to the LGWM plan and how it was formulated.”

Incidentally, walking advocates don’t like the plan because at 10 places on the route cyclists and pedestrians share footpaths, and disability advocates don’t like the plan because of increased distances between drop-off points and destination.

No plan for the Golden Mile will win universal support. Even the upgrade of Courtenay/Manners that we support would find plenty of opponents. But the current plan has fundamental flaws because it reduces people’s ability to travel to and through central Wellington.

We haven’t given up hope. There is the potential for the Waka Kotahi board and the new transport minister to reject the plan.

Why would the government Transport Agency with finite funds and a new-found interest in better roads provide 51% of the $140m to upgrade the Golden Mile when it only benefits pedestrians, and even then only according to a dubious and subjective formula?

The criteria for measuring the plan for the Golden Mile must be value-for-money, good-for-central-Wellington, City-wide-mobility and emissions. On each metric, we can do better.