Golden Mile stumbles across finish line
A last-ditch attempt to keep private cars on Lambton Quay and Courtney Place has failed. Will Wellington retailers learn to love a pedestrian-friendly CBD?
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, June 30, by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Te Pāti Māori selects 20-year-old candidate for Waikato seat; fuel tax discount and half-price fares end tonight; and Bernard Hickey finds out why the future runs on electric power. But first, the fight over Wellington’s CBD project may be over, but the resentment will remain for some time to come.
A last-ditch attempt to ditch pedestrianisation
After days of angry debate playing out across the media, the vote of no confidence in Let's Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) failed to gain majority support, going down 9-7 in council. The failure of the last-ditch effort to halt LGWM – the massive infrastructure project aimed at getting Wellingtonians out of their cars and onto bikes and public transport – means Wellington City Council (WCC) won’t withdraw from its partnership with Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) and Waka Kotahi to deliver the project, and won’t be liable for at least $40m in costs as a result. On Wednesday, mayor Tory Whanau rejected a “compromise deal” that would have put the Lambton Quay section of the Golden Mile pedestrianisation plan on hold, setting the stage for yesterday’s vote.
Let’s get Wellington… paying more and more
Part of the opponents’ problem with LGWM is cost. The budget currently stands at $7.4 billion, up from $2.8b in 2018, and is predicted to go even higher. Beyond the headline cost, LGWM includes some other fairly eye-popping figures. In March, Stuff’s Tom Hunt reported that spending on outside consultants – including, to be fair, such vital contractors as engineers and designers – will be over $130m by the end of next financial year. Then, earlier this week, it was revealed that another $17m has been added to the cost of the Thorndon Quay to Hutt Road section of the project, and the cost of the controversial Golden Mile project has risen from $78m in 2020 to $139.4m today. While WCC is picking up 40% of the total LGWM bill (with GWRC and Waka Kotahi taking care of the rest), it’s responsible for 49% of the cost of the Thorndon Quay and Golden Mile projects.
Will retailers flounder or flourish?
Even more controversial is the effect on central city businesses. Under the plans, private cars will be eliminated from the Golden Mile – the stretch of road from Parliament to the Embassy Theatre – and many retailers are livid at the prospect. Retail NZ says a number of retailers have sold up because of the Golden Mile plan, and more are set to leave. A large group of local retailers released an open letter arguing that the project risks turning the entire thoroughfare into something like Manners Street, the bus-lane-only block now “characterised by empty retail spaces and discount stores”. Julie Moore, managing director of Moore Wilson’s, says the plan is ill-conceived and “will do lasting damage to our city”. Yet an Ernst and Young report last year found that “retailers generally overestimate the importance of on-street parking outside shops when nearby parking is enough”. Pedestrian-friendly shopping streets have been proven to work, says transport committee chair Thomas Nash, who notes that “all the most successful cities in Australasia” already have them.
Lessons from cities that pedestrianised, and survived
That Ernst and Young report (from page 218 here) makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in urban planning and the future of our CBDs. It looked at 12 central-city case studies, half of them within New Zealand, and found that retailers consistently and considerably “overestimate the spending by shoppers travelling by car while significantly undervaluing the spend of bus passengers and pedestrians”. That’s a finding backed up by former GWRC councillor Roger Blakeley, who was also the planning officer who oversaw the pedestrianisation of Auckland’s Fort St in 2015. A later study found pedestrian numbers increased by 47% during peak hours, retail spend increased by 47% and hospitality spend by 429%. “The businesses, just like in Wellington, were concerned this would be the kiss of death,” Blakely told Stuff. “In fact, what happened was the reverse of that.”
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Te Pāti Māori selects 20-year-old candidate for Waikato seat
Twenty-year-old Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke is to stand as the Te Pāti Māori (TPM) candidate for Hauraki-Waikato, a seat currently held by Labour cabinet minister Nanaia Mahuta. TPM says Maipi-Clarke “is an activist, published author and expert on the maramataka and taiao, and at 20 years old represents a new generation of Māori political leadership”. According to Maipi-Clarke’s father, broadcaster Potaka Maipi, multiple political parties approached her after she delivered a rousing speech in Parliament during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori last year. Maipi-Clarke is the granddaughter of Taitimu Maipi, who attacked the Captain Hamilton statue in its namesake city in 2018, and the grand-niece of Hana Te Hemara, who delivered the Māori language petition on the steps of Parliament in 1972.
Fuel tax discount, half-price fares end tonight
The fuel tax discount and half-price public transport for most adults end at midnight tonight, representing a significant hit to household budgets already under strain from the cost of living crisis. Scrapping the fuel tax discount will add 25c a litre and almost 4c extra GST to the cost of standard petrol, the Herald reports, while those over 25 without a community services card will see their public transport fares double. The subsidy for road user charges for diesel vehicles will also end at midnight. Many service stations have this week experienced long queues as motorists fill up before the price rise. On the bright side, public transport will become free for children under 13 (except in Wellington, where kids will have to wait another month), and the ban on produce bags, crockery and cutlery, straws and produce labels made from plastic will come into effect.
The Spinoff is looking for its first-ever Wellington editor
Wellington is dear to The Spinoff’s heart and deep in our DNA. From parliament protests to poonamis, hand sculptures to hand gluers, capybaras to Currizza and mould to marae, we’ve been covering the capital for years. But now, for the first time ever, we’re thrilled to be looking for someone to lead The Spinoff’s Pōneke-based current affairs and culture coverage as the editor of a dedicated Pōneke section.
Find out more about the role and how to apply here.
The future runs on electric power
A groundbreaking transformation is underway in the United States, where an industrial revolution is underway aiming to replace a staggering one billion fossil-fueled machines with clean, electric alternatives fueled by the forces of nature – wind, sun, and water. This remarkable shift, ignited by a masterful manoeuvre within the world's most complex political economy, has set the stage for an inspiring journey. In this week’s episode of When the Facts Change, Bernard Hickey sits down with climate tech entrepreneur and climate activist Saul Griffith to get the story of how Saul and his colleagues collaborated with Joe Biden's White House to successfully take control of the climate debate.
Click and Collect
A senior public servant says Kiri Allan “yelled and screamed” so loudly on a telephone call that staff in the office could hear her, Stuff’s Andrea Vance reports.
How the University of Canterbury avoided the tertiary crisis (The Press, paywalled).
This New Zealander got tickets to all five Taylor Swift shows in Australia (please nobody tell Stewart, or I fear he might self-combust).
The new Queenstown gondolas officially open today.
A retail worker in Milton has won a $10k payout for unfair dismissal after being sacked for sharing her anti-vax views with a customer.
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
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It’s Friday…
… and it’s never too early to start planning your 100th birthday, I say. Luckily enough, I now know exactly what I want.
Courtenay