Auckland MP Chlöe Swarbrick launches petition to ban cars on Queen Street
Auckland MP Chlöe Swarbrick has launched a petition to ban cars on Queen Street once and for all.
Once again, Chloe leading the debate.
I’ve called for decades that Queen street should be made a pedestrian boulevard. It has never made sense for a city attempting to build a vibrant inner city life and culture that fucking cars are allowed to dominate the space.
Queen Street should be made car free, allowing only delivery vans and busses weekdays and zero traffic on weekends so that the space can be used for the Farmers Market which happens in the lower part of town on Saturdays.
It could be a constant all weekend festival using those spaces and making it far more attractive weekdays.
Look, here’s the naked reality, Auckland City Council and AT have fucked the inner city with their fucking city rail loop and have fucked any culture in the inner city because of the crime rate.
I’ve lived in the CDB for 18 years, so have some idea of how bad shit has become.
We need an urgent reset and banning cars will allow the inner city some space to grow and regenerate.
The problem will then be police and as this jaw dropping interview with the cops shows, they are more frightened of the crims than people who live there are!
Central Auckland Reborn: New city centre police base to open amid crime spike
“If we have a station that is there and manned then we need to have staff in it all the time instead of using our staff, which I think is a far better purpose, to be out there providing prevention, reassurance patrols.”
Certain criminal activity was on the rise in central Auckland.
There were 5633 instances of theft, 2130 assaults, and 154 aggravated robberies reported in the year to March.
When compared with 2016-2020 data, victimisations were up 36 per cent.
Anderson said concerning trends included the rising prevalence of vehicle theft, public violence and intoxication.
While such trends were being recorded elsewhere in Tāmaki Makaurau and New Zealand, Anderson said the pandemic had radically changed the city centre’s demographic.
Without tourists and international students, some backpackers and motels were being used for emergency accommodation.
…we all remember the Fort St Police station, it was the main Police surveillance centre for Auckland City, the problem was that beaten up people kept banging on the doors, so they moved the station. Now the gutless wimps refuse to operate there because so many people are getting assaulted…
While the city centre received less of these incidents than in the south and west, Anderson said the risk posed to his staff had prompted some reluctance to come to work.
“They signed up to keep the community safe, they signed up to get out there and provide the best service possible.
“They didn’t sign up – despite what some sectors might say – to take a bullet, but the risk is out there for them.”
…the Police are big and tough when it comes to attacking your and my civil liberties, but they don’t like crims with guns, they might fight back!
Central Auckland has been destroyed by a poorly thought out City Rail Loop that has made moving through the city impossible, it has been destroyed by a lack of international students providing safety in numbers, it has been destroyed by working from home privilege, it has been destroyed by emergency housing tenants with enormous social service needs that aren’t met and it has been destroyed by gangs of teen truants coming in from the suburbs and 501s who have now moved in and are running the streets.
Getting rid of the cars and trying to regenerate the central city is a must followed by a far more pervasive Police presence.
If we don’t try and save the inner city now, there won’t an inner city to visit once that fucking city rail loop is fucking finished!
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She should resign from the gween party and run for Mayor of Auckland! Just for a laugh!
No much easier being a Green MP.
I’ll agree to this on one condition.
Those living in the CBD pay for it – tack it onto their rates. Charge the corporates in their ivory towers. Charge the Uni and other tertiary facilities whose students will benefit. Hotel owners – fuck them – they got plenty from Robber(son). Everyone that benefits – pays.
People in the suburbs like myself that don’t come into the city should NOT have to pay for this. If we do – perfect case in point for a congestion charge – ring fence this against the improved assets and pay down debt that way.
………and Chloe campaign on this and make it a bottom line in negotiations – put your money where your mouth is.
Don’t worry frank. I think the chairman of Panuku is onto this little scheme?
I’m guessing there will be a ‘Fire Sale’ in the CBD of shops and buildings for rock bottom prices once this recession kicks in.
Panuku has teamed up with the NZ Superannuation fund! They have access to $40b! And so does Blackrock Investments and Managed Assets management!
Together or separately they’ll buy up the whole of the CBD cheap! Turn it into a Google City kinda playground and then sell it to Google or Amazon as a livable playground come ‘DataCentre!’
Four data-centres are under construction in Auckland as we speak. Amazon, Google etc …
and will those data centres get cheap lekky at our collective expense like a well known ali smelter?
Should ban motorbikes from Queen Street Also.
I suspect it might be too late. The WFH thing and the missing students has killed the inner city. Will it come back – who knows!
It could but whilst I agree with Martyn’s suggestion of a pedestrianised Queen St from Wellesley St to Quay St I think he’s missed the critical issue with regards to the police / crime issue.
Labour needs to grow some balls and tell the cops to get it done, back them and give them what they need to make the city safe again.
They also need to start dealing with all the scumbags they’ve just left to fester in the central city.
The cruise liners start returning in October and all it will take is for one well of passenger to get assaulted or worse and all hell will break loose. There’s just too much revenue for NZ Inc on the line to not get this sorted.
culture being killed in auckland city centre? that’s a bit of stretch, it’d need to have had some first
…all I ever saw was boozers.
My experience of late too gagarin.
My experience of late too gagarin.
ACTs super city, what did you expect would happen?
Agree entirely, no need for cars along queen street. Things would be vastly improved. Also need to boost eh police presence, Perhaps very slow moving shuttles.
This is not entirely analogous but since they banned cars on most of our local mountains, it has been great. Mt Eden for one has now been made so much more accessible and safer for walkers, joggers, and dogs. The viewing platform and the view from the top are awesome
Very smart comment considering 94% of all first time criminals are inside for motor vehcile offences banning private motor vehciles from the CBD would be a winner see what it has done for Brisbane the downtown has been revitalised.
The car is a major componet of criminal activity try taking the stolen flatscreen on public transport.
But curtail motor vehcile use and you stand on the toes of the biggest players in the economy ie the oil industry and there cohorts the motor vehicle dealers any activity that attacks there income stream will be denigrated from every angle.
Won’t happen if Leo wins.
The rest of Auckland city doesn’t care because the CBD was always more LA/Dallas than Chicago or NYC. Which is to say that it was always a wasteland unless you wanted to get drunk. Developing the Viaduct Basin pulled away the decent bars and restaurants and what’s left has become a black hole consuming itself.
Add to that the development of clean, safer spaces like Newmarket and their massive Westfield Mall (plus bars & restaurants), Sylvia Park and Albany+Hobsonville and why would anybody aside from ignorant tourists want to explore the seedy side of Auckland in its “heart”.
And that’s before we begin to think what happens when the Mall Giants/Bus Corps begin to look at Pokeno and decide it’s more than just a satellite town feeding commuters to Auckland.
If things are going to be saved you might find some ideas here in Quillette, Reconsidering the city:
To retain some demographic vitality—particularly given the decline in migration to urban cores—problems with crime and sanitation need to be addressed, as does the paucity of affordable family-friendly housing. This new city will be less about high-rise glamour and more about attractive neighborhoods. The artists, musicians, artisans, writers, and tech professionals do not need cubicles in a tower; they need neighborhoods that sustain them and their families.
first a charge point at every parking meter, if a servo has 4 pumps min 4 chargers to…also a national standard connector standard charge rates..so EV owners can ‘fill up’ at any charger EVs that don’t comply don’t get imported FULL STOP….the EU are standardising usbc for all chargeable home devices…so it can be done for EV charging ports in NZ too.
if we don’t do the basics EVs will never take off because of the inconvenience, the usual ad hoc NZ variable provision just won’t cut it…we need to impose standards