Auckland councillors have argued over whether the city is getting bang for its buck from bike path spending.
Today they endorsed a new $306m plan to roll out more cycleways - including by taking over some traffic lanes and roadside parking - but not before it ran into strong headwinds at the council planning committee.
Councillors argued that the plan was either the city's best bet to become a "Copenhagen of the South Pacific", or was a "goldplated" approach that swallows valuable road space.
One key aim - to cut deaths and injuries to cyclists - won wide support, but councillor Daniel Newman called a second central goal - to cut greenhouse gas emissions - "farting against thunder".
Controversy has dogged the passage of the plan, with mayor Phil Goff telling Auckland Transport a year ago that councillors were unhappy it appeared to be in go-slow mode on cycleways.
Today, the plan finally in hand, some councillors protested it was only emailed to them last night, even though the cycling presentation had been scheduled, then adjourned, back in March - but others, including Goff, said it was well summarised by council officers so they didn't need to read the whole thing.
Debate centred on fears the $300m would be just the start, and might need topping up by $1.7 billion.
AT did not suggest it would not be.
"There is a strong economic case for the proposed investments and activities outlined in the [cycling] programme business case - the difficulty is that the current resources will not enable many of them to be put in place," AT's deputy chair Wayne Donnelly told the meeting.
His agency's staff said that even $2b would not be enough to build a comprehensive and safe cycle network, and their reports suggest at least $1b is needed to get anywhere near the target of boosting cycling from just 1 percent of trips to 7 percent (or a five-fold increase in daily trips from the current 25,000).
The plan envisages more cyclepaths, especially on strategic routes (such as between shops and schools), safer sharing with cars (including by taking up some traffic lanes and roadside carparking), and a lot more bike education for children.
Planning committee chair, councillor Chris Darby, who was an AT critic a year ago, today became a cheerleader.
"All the evidence in the world is if there's any one thing you can do as a city, is you get people biking.
"And we can be a Copenhagen in the South Pacific, we can be an Amsterdam," Darby said.
In the end, 13 councillors endorsed AT's priorities for spending the $300m, and seven abstained, including Tau Henare who said mana whenua had not been consulted properly.
Councillor Wayne Walker also abstained, worried about an average price tag of $5m per kilometre of cycleway - and sceptical at AT's claim that almost 60 percent of Aucklanders surveyed said they would cycle if it was safer.
"While I'm entirely supportive of funding cycling, I've got real concerns around the goldplated approach that we continue to take, and the real absence of cycling numbers on many cycleways," Walker told councillors.
The plan puts its cost-benefit ratio at two to three times what is spent, most of that in health savings and benefits.
Councillor Pippa Coom later told Checkpoint the council should "get really serious" about delivering the whole network, not just the $306m bit.
"Even if we're spending two billion that is just great value for money" and a very small percentage of the transport budget of $35b over the next decade, Coom said.
One headwind against the plan was that it depends on a controversial carparking strategy debated in March, to go ahead.
This aims to remove a bit more than three percent of roadside carparks in the city in the next decade.
It's not just carparks needed either, for bikes.
"We're looking at repurposing in some instances car parking, in some instances flush median space, in some instances narrowing general traffic lanes," AT planner Ella Davis told councillors.
"That is what we see overseas, and that is really the key behind the accelerated and more affordable rollout of our cycle network."
Councillor Greg Sayers said it amounted to a "perfect storm" of roading given up to cycleways that might not be used, even as funding was diverted from core maintenance on the likes of footpaths.
Councillor Desley Simpson said a plan that depends on spending billions more to really work should be left to a new council and mayor to decide on once they are voted in next year.
Councillor Daniel Newman, one of the three 'no' votes, said his constituents were telling him that bikes-only was not a balanced approach, and he questioned whether $2b to cut emissions by just 30,000 tonnes was value for money; "farting against thunder" he called it.
Councillor Angela Dalton told the meeting: 'if you build it, they will come', as has happened on the Southern Path near the Takanini interchange.
She said the debate's focus on the money was surprising, given the meeting was not to approve spending, but to set a direction on where the $300m approved should go.
RNZ
