Standing for Mayor of Hamilton

As a experienced Councillor, I've  never in the past had a desire to stand for Mayor – I've been happy to work for the City in areas like transport, community affairs and recreation, where I had good knowledge & background.


  

  But the current regime in Council has discarded the experience of Councillors, and tried to turn the organisation into an pale imitation of a corporate outfit, with huge management salaries, and a so-called governance board that rubberstamps management decisions.

Hamilton is growing fast – and it needs a Mayor who will stand up for it, not one who will quibble about the small points, but effectively let lawyers and managers decide how to run the Council.

  We have become an organisation that knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

  We must think of our children and grandchildren – Hamilton needs:

·      more playgrounds and recreation facilities for young people

·      fairer treatment for Council staff

·      fairer wages and salaries

·    much better transport systems

·      better deals for arts, heritage and the environment

·      no water metering 

·      no sale of vital community assets

  I am fiercely independent, and will back the ‘little person’ when they need support.

  Residents and ratepayers deserve more than the lawyers’ bare minimum of consultation on important issues – I will see this happens. Ruakura and Templeview developments are good in the long run, but residents' rights should not be ridden roughshod over to get there. Heritage concerns need much better consultation with the whole community. Elected members must have a much better handle

  Council must also be financially efficient – this doesn’t mean acting like a large corporate – it means representing the community. Your elected members are put there to do a job - I will see that they all have jobs to do, not just monthly meetings to rubberstamp managers’ decisions.

  We must reconsider rate rises above the level of cost increases we face – we have learnt from past mistakes, and are controlling spending and debt – more of this gain needs to be felt by ratepayers. There are still many opportunities to think of the future and develop and support community infrastructure.

Are Engineers & NZTA collaborating to 'gold-plate' roading projects?

Today a constituent complained to me about the $4.5M cost of removing a roundabout in front to Hamilton's 'The Base' and replacing it with a full traffic-signalled intersection. His complaint is quite justified, and I replied....

   In this case, both myself and one or two other Councillors suggested 'ramp metering' on the current roundabout, rather than the full, expensive signalised intersection. However, our traffic engineers, in their wisdom, have agreed with    NZTA's traffic engineers (who have masses of experience and never cock anything up) that the only solution is the gold-plated one.

   Interestingly, a number of people, including Councillors, raised the need for a signalised intersection here right back near the start of The Base – however the collected wisdom of the traffic engineers said this was not necessary at the time (when it would have been both cheaper and more affordable). 

   On our Council, with its current structures (including the disbanding the Transport & Infrastructure Committees), we do not usually have the expertise or focus to convince the majority of Councillors that the engineers are not necessarily right. An added complication is that on a number of occasions, NZTA has said to us – so our staff report – that their subsidy for roading works (I was going to say 'transport works' but remembered roads are the only part of transport NZTA funds nowdays) is only available if HCC agrees to go with the gold-plated solution. The general line from NZTA is "Have we got a deal for you!" or something similar.

   Needless to say, Councillors who are not so familiar with transport issues (which is most of us now, under the current structure) feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, and end up agreeing to go with NZTA and our traffic engineers, with what they consider to be the only deal on the table.

   You might be interested to know that it is not just The Base intersection where we are contemplating spending megabucks to achieve a gold-plated roading solution, when something lesser would do, at least for some time:

• Extension of Wairere Drive south from Ruakura Rd to Cobham Drive – 3 or more years ahead of schedule: for 12 years Council has had a policy that we don't support completing the ring road (this is the last section) until the Hamilton Bypass on the Expressway is completed – because we don't want Wairere Drive, an internal city road designed for city traffic – to be used as a de factor state highway for through traffic (like Avalon Drive was for many years). Our staff tell us that NZTA is refusing to guarantee the normal subsidy for this stretch of the road unless we start it immediately the section through to Ruakura Rd is completed (next year) - this is at least 3 years ahead of schedule.
• 4-laning of Wairere Drive from River Rd to Resolution Drive – this may become necessary when Resolution Drive is hooked up to the Expressway via exit and entry ramps near Horsham Downs (and a significant increase in traffic entering the city from the north happens). But this work (which Council may have to pay towards) is not in our 10 year plan for construction at all, yet staff are planning to expand Wairere Drive in this area next year, and have told me that NZTA have agreed to provide their subsidy for other parts of Wairere Drive only on the basis that this work is part of the deal. With the new traffic lights being installed at River Rd/Wairere Dr intersection, it is not necessary at this stage to expand the road east of there.

But then who am I to question the engineers?

What will it be like in 20 years if we do nothing?

  After 3 weeks in England, it is blindingly obvious that every local and regional (County) Council is asking itself the question: ‘what will our cities and towns be like in 20 years if we just do ‘business as usual’ and don’t seriously address the growing car problem?’

  Not one of the ones I’ve seen has taken the ‘build more roads’ option – the political colour of the local and national administrations seems to make liitle difference, except round the edges. I’ve seen Tory, Labour, Liberal Democrat and even one Green city administration – they are all working hard on public transport and cycling & walking solutions to ensure their communities are liveable in the future.

   One transport innovation that has the Brits justifiably enthusiastic is the newly opened ‘Cambridgeshire Guided Busway’ – the longest such in the world, with a total length of over 32kms. In an area similar in size and population to the central Waikato, the Conservative Party-led equivalent of the regional Council has developed a dedicated bus network, partly on old railway lines, linking 2 outlying commuter towns and 2 new development areas (one not yet built) to the old centre of Cambridge, the well-known University town with a 90,000 population.

  The buses travel up to 90kmh out of the city, but just use the normal bus routes and bus lanes inside Cambridge. In every respect bar the small mechanical guide wheels they are normal new buses similar to the Hamilton Orbiters (except for a couple of double-deckers, but in the first month recorded a 92% increase in passenger numbers over the last month of the routes they replaced.

  Well-used shared cycle/walkways parallel the guided busway out of the towns, linking also to a nationally important wetland area that was previously run down and almost inaccessible to the public.

Who'd live in London?

  Obviously, 9 million people - but after a hectic day with 4 appointments, not me! The train (very expensive) in from Bath was 40 mins late, the tube (underground) was massively overcrowded, dirty and hot - and closed on the line I needed to use (electrical fault), leaving me and thousands of others exiting at the wrong stop. And the train out was standing room only for hundreds of us as for the first 40 minutes.

  But, surprisingly, the taxi was cheap, and the driver friendly & fair, and the 'Cycle Superhighways' and 'Boris Bikes' (named after London's Tory Mayor Boris Johnson) were also cheap and easy to use - although I was very thankful I had a local cyclist 'guiding' me on the 4km ride we needed to make through the traffic. There are about 500 official bike docking stations, and over 6,000 hire bikes in the city, along with tens of thousands of other private bikes chained to bike racks, railings, posts and trees throughout the commercial area - sometimes I thought I was in Copenhagen!

  I also visited the central traffic control room, where about 2,000 traffic cameras, dozens of operators, traffic police, utility and emergency service co-ordinators managed all the city's traffic - actually (and very efficiently) managing to keep it from grinding to a halt - one of the operators I met was a kiwi, so that was probably why!

  All in all, however, competing with literally millions every day for footpath, road, and train space is definitely not your average kiwi's cup of tea. The fact that the London transport authorities have managed to get such a good (and growing) cycle network and infrastructure in place in the last few years is a testament to inspired political leadership, excellent staff management and clearly some community realisation that cars in such a crowded place are simply unworkable.

Buses & Bollards

  Visited two quite different towns - Crawley (pop. 100,000), a new town south of London developed post-War initially to take population overspill, and now the gateway to and service centre for Gatwick Airport; and Bournemouth (pop. 160,000), on the south coast settled as a tourist centre in Victorian times with 20,000 hotel beds.
  Both towns (can't be called cities because neither have 'royal warrants') are well-connected to London and other regional centres by passenger rail, and have bus services that would put any medium NZ city to shame.
  However, what I was looking at was the impressive 'Fastway' Bus Rapid Transit system in Crawley, linking all major areas in that town, the major emplyment focus of Gatwick and the smaller nearby centre of Horley (20,000). 'Guided' buses run on a combination of separated bus tracks, standard bus lanes and ordinary sections of road, coupled with bus-only priority measures at most intersections - meaning buses are pretty much the fastest and most reliable means of transport in the area, and sharply reduce the need for parking provision - especially the congested Gatwick airport precinct.
  In Bournemouth, the innovations I viewed were the 20mph (30kph) speed zones and the associated traffic calming measures in residential streets [see photo of kid-shaped bollard decked out in the local school uniform]. In order top slow traffic down and reduce the attractiveness of some wider streets as 'rat runs' physical choking of the street to one lane only is built in - very effectively.

First impressions - after 3 days 'On the Road'

Visits to Winchester, Brighton and Portsmouth in my 1st three days in the UK have shown a few common threads.... [Pic: on-street cycle parking in central Brighton]

  1/. how much more safety-conscious in the cities people are here - all three have extensive areas of 20mph (=30kph) road speed zones in residential and central city commercial districts - something that is clearly widely bought into by the travelling public, with almost zero enforcement needed. Portsmouth - with 94% of the city covered by these slow speed zones - has recently turned off all their speed cameras, while the police are at the same time saying they don't have the resources to police the lower limits - BUT there is still no obvious speeding problem, and average speeds have dropped;
  2/. how the 1980s and 1990s privatisation of public transport has led to really high fares and an almost complete inability by local councils and communities to have any control over bus, rail and tram services, and their pricing. Already I'm hearing a common thread of complaints by staff and elected members in councils here about how difficult it is to plan for future land use and transport needs;

  3/. how much more cycling, and cycle facility provision, there is here - while the weather and traffic volumes are noticeably worse - I'll have to find out the secret of this!

  4/. How proud staff and Councillors have been about their transport initiatives, and how keen they have been to discuss them, and show them to me.

On the Road - first of a series of columns from Europe

Dave Macpherson is the recipient of a 2011 Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship – for as study trip to the UK & The Netherlands looking at what New Zealand can learn from practical examples of good public transport systems and cycling and pedestrian facilities in medium and smaller cities and towns.

  Last month Cambridgeshire County in England saw the opening of a ‘guided busway’ network between the central city of Cambridge and the ‘necklace’ of smaller towns surrounding it – an area similar in population and structure to the central Waikato.

  The network is the newest and most advanced example in the UK of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, where public transport links significant employment centres with suburbs and towns that the staff live in. Bus routes are typically separate from the main roads, or (when part of them) have dedicated bus lanes, and bus priority measures at intersections.

  In a couple of weeks I’ll be experiencing the Cambridge BRT first hand, and seeing what we can learn from both the successes and delays and cost overruns they experienced!

Brighton and Hove, on England’s South Coast, won national awards for its network of ‘home zones’ where residential and suburban streets have 20mph (30kph) speed limits, and ‘shared space’  road corridor designs that encourage pedestrian and cyclist priority use of the streets, and cars – while not ‘second class citizens’ – have to negotiate roads with care and consideration for more vulnerable users.

  In the Netherlands, I’ll be looking at the same type of place, in towns like Haren, Houten and Drachten (where the ‘shared space’ concept was born), and at the amazing network of cycling facilities that country has built up.

Some of these have been in place for 30-40 years, and have helped the Dutch develop, and accept as part of their everyday life, a whole new culture around safer use of roads, and acceptance of walking and cycling as healthier, cheaper and very often quicker means of transport.

  In Hamilton and the wider Waikato, we’ve been trialling 40kph zones outside schools, and better methods of slowing traffic in suburban streets than the old ‘hump in the middle of the road’. Until two years ago, we also had nation-leading growth in bus usage, but which has stagnated or even gone backwards recently.

  If we want to continue to be leading lights in New Zealand of transport innovation, including safer roads for all users, it is important that we learn from best practice wherever it happens – I hope my study trip will bring back a lot we can learn from.

Community organisation wins the day!

  I've attended two great events in the last two days that show the great value in communities organising for things they want or need......
  On Thursday 14th October, the Mardon Rd community successfully stopped plans for yet another suburban liquor store being plonked (so to speak) in their midst. As a successful community protest march was starting up, news came in that the public opposition to the liquor licence had caused the applicants to withdraw their application to the City Council.
  Over 1200 submissions in opposition had already been organised, and will still be delivered to the Council to reinforce a very widespread community view that there are far too many local booze shops, and that they are far too accessible for communities already suffering from the effects of a booze culture.
  Today (Friday 15th Oct) I was at the opening of the 4km Horsham Downs to Hamilton cycling/walking track - not something that either Waikato District or Hamilton City Councils had installed FOR the community, BUT a facility that the local Horsham Downs community had itself planned, fundraised and organised for, with work and materials provided by the local community.
  Hundreds of primary schoolkids from both Horsham Downs and Te Totara Primary schools attended, and showed their support for both the project (a winner of the inaugural Celia Wade-Brown active transport award) and for the Cancer Society, which the opening was fundraising for.
  Congratulations to both communities - motre power to your arms!

Eastgate legal opinion vindicates community stand

  A high-powered legal opinion received by the Hamilton City Council has shown staff should NOT have issued a 'Certificate of Compliance' (resource consent) for the Eastgate development on the corner of Clyde and Grey Sts in Hamilton East.
  The opinion - by Paul Cavanagh QC - also states that a 'consent notice' preventing access by the Eastgate developers onto the busy Grey St should not have been removed by Council staff.
  Both actions by Council planning staff - supported by well-paid lawyers - were strongly opposed by the Hamilton East Community Trust, who were at a total financial disadvantage throughout the battle, with both the millionaire applicant, and the Council opposing them at every stage. HECT's 'expert' witnesses in the end refused to attend the Environment Court on behalf of HECT, when HECT ran out of cash to pay their appearance costs, thuse severely damaging the community's case. Both Council and the Ministry of the Environment had earlier refused to fund any of the community's legal costs.
  The opinion is a complete vindication of the community's stand, as represented by the HECT.
  This whole case is a sad and unfortunate indictment of the way in which a number of planning consent issues have been handled in Council (and probably not just in Hamilton). Developers - with every advantage of funds, experience, access to decision-makers, and familiarity with the legal/planning fraternity - are often on a different (and vastly superior) playing field to the community.
  Councils and their staff must change the way they look at planning consent issues when there is a strongly-expressed community viewpoint - they may not be required to take into account the community's interests, but if they are doing their jobs they damn well ought to, in my humble opinion!
  Recent concerns expressed by the Templeview community over the proposed demolition of Church College buildings by the US-based Church hierarchy were another case in point. It was extremely difficult to get Council staff to agree to seriously consult with the local community over these plans.
  The fact that two Hamilton City Councillors had to pay towards the legal costs of the HECT, just to ensure a genuinely independent legal opinion was accessed, is not good enough - I hope everyone has learnt a lesson from this.

Lower school speed zones campaign gains momentum

The unanimous decision by Selwyn District Council last week to reduce speed limits outside 7 schools in their District is a sensible one, made in the interests of safety for our most vulnerable road users.
The fact that some schools may not meet the normal NZ Transport Authority criteria for lower speed zones shows up at least two issues:
1. How out of date and potentially ‘unsafe’ NZTA criteria could be; and
2. How little control ‘Road Controlling Authorities’ like District and city councils really have over roads in their areas.
Hamilton City Council has progressively introduced lower (40kph) speed zones outside 48 of its schools over the last three years, but is having trouble convincing NZTA that the remaining 7 schools without these zones deserve and need the same treatment.
At the next meeting of the Hamilton City Council Transport Committee we will be discussing how our Council and the affected communities in Hamilton can break through the same NZTA barriers to achieve a safer environment for all of our children.
We hope that the Government’s transport agency will see sense and help, rather than hinder, this move.
Good work Selwyn District Council, and the Selwyn communities who have fought for this for so long.

Hennebry Team's anti-public transport rave against rail

The Hennebry Council Team have shown their true colours with their latest attack on the Hamilton-Auckland passenger rail service.
In an empty-headed rant to the Waikato Times editor, the Tania version of the Fighting Hennebrys has tried to drag central Government politics into the local body election campaign by falsely claiming the Hamilton-Auckland passenger train is a Labour Party gimmick.
Many members of the National Party, including Hamilton West MP Tim MacIndoe, have publicly supported the rail service, questioning only its timing – they say it’s a “not if, but when” situation.
The Labour Party had nothing to do with establishing the campaign for the rail service, but they are welcome to support it, and some of its members do.
So also do many thousands of other Hamiltonians, not the least of whom are members of the business community who are forced to waste hours each day in Auckland Motorway traffic jams, not to mention paying a fortune for Auckland parking.
Contrary to Hennebry’s claims, all reports on the potential service to date show that the service would be easily affordable if it received just the normal subsidy buses do at the moment, or rail services do in Auckland and Wellington.
Perhaps Hennebry hasn’t read them, or perhaps she doesn’t believe Hamilton deserves the same public transport support as other major cities?
The Hennebry Team have never supported Hamilton's fast-growing public transport network, trying at various times to:

• cancel Sunday bus services
• cut middle-of-the-day buses
• prevent new bus routes starting
• cut kerbside facilties for bus passengers
• demand large bus fare increases

The Hennebrys that have been elected have NEVER made a positive comment about Hamilton's public transport, so why would anyone expect them to change their spots over a passenger rail service that might help bring the city into the modern age?
Of course, their attitude is hardly surprising when you consider that the "leader" (there's a misnomer if ever there was one) Roger owns seven cars - he's far too busy deciding which one to drive each day without worrying about a good transport system for anyone else!

When is an 'independent' opinion not independent?

   This is the question opponents of the proposed Eastgate development on the busy Hamilton East corner of Clyde & Grey Sts have been asking themselves, after City Council management sought an 'independent' opinion on the legality of questionable Council planning processes from the very same lawyer Council management had paid to represent the Council in the April Environment Court hearing over the development.

    The Hamilton East Community Trust had discovered that strong restrictions on vehicle access to the Eastgate site had been listed on the property title at the time Council planners had approved the development - limits that meant the development plans could not have been legally approved. Then, days after the development was approved, Council planners retrospectively removed the restrictions without the normal consultation, allowing the Eastgate proposal the vehicle access it needed.

   When the Trust complained to Council management, and asked for an independent legal review of this abuse of process, Council management amazingly sought an opinion from the same solicitor who had run Council's case in the Appeal by the Trust against Eastgate, someone who had received information about this process 'problem' months earlier, but not advised Council management.

   Apart from completely changing the character of this former convent site, the development will add traffic chaos to an already highly-congested route, which is also part of the flagship Orbiter bus route and the main route between the city and the University. The people who want to build the development, and those who approved it, using shonky processes, need their heads read!

Traffic Problems at the Base to worsen before they improve!

   Residents of the northern suburbs will be acutely aware of the traffic problems both inside and outside The Base at certain times of the week – Saturdays regularly being a problem.
   Original calculations of the number of vehicles using the Base and the access roads to it – provided to the City Council and the NZ Transport Agency at the time consents were applied for - were obviously inaccurate, and roads and intersections were therefore not built to cope with the volumes we see on occasions.
   This problem is likely to worsen in the near future as the following developments – none of which can legally be stopped – get built and start operating:
• Farmers Mall at The Base (with nearly 1,000 extra carparks)
• New development at the Base to the north of Mitre 10
• Countdown Supermarket across the highway from The Base entrance
• 5 new office blocks at the corner of Church & Maui Sts
• Large petrol station on the corner of Te Kowhai Rd and the Highway
   In addition, Council is aware that The Base intends to put further developments in the north east corner of their site (in front of Mitre 10), the owners of the Eagle Spares site across the Highway are looking to develop that, and a number of new smaller developments are happening down The Boulevard past Harvey Norman.
   The new Te Rapa Bypass, taking the current highway from Horotiu to Avalon Drive, to the west away from this area is 3-4 years away from completion, and will probably only help the Council mark time with traffic growth in the north.
   One of the major causes of the problems in the area has been the unwillingness of The Base owners to inform Council as to their full plans for the whole site – they are ‘drip-feeding’ development applications segment by segment without ever giving the full picture. This has meant that it is impossible to properly plan for traffic growth and other transport options in the area, as The Base is the major player, and what it does affects everyone else. While they contributed in a small way to the cost of new intersections outside The Base when it first started, traffic growth generated by their development has outstripped capacity of the roads and public transport services.
   The City Council is grappling with how to get this problem area under control, so residents and businesses travelling through the area are not adversely affected more than at present – watch this space!

40kph Speed Zones outside every school in city?

NEW:  Sign the Petition for 40kph speed zones outside schools.

Hamilton City Council's Transport Committee decided today to press ahead with implementing its plan to have a 40kph speed zone outside every school in the city, despite Govt 'rules' supposedly preventing this.

The decision is made to enhance safety for kids - vulnerable road users - after a very recent report showed speeds and accident numbers had both lowered significantly outside the first 7 schools with such zones in Hamilton.

The Govt transport agency (NZTA) currently has a rule that only allows such variable zones (i.e. operating only during start & finish times for schools) in a very limited number of schools 'warranted' for the signs, and does not allow the much cheaper 'static' (non-electronic) signage. This flies in the face of international experience and practices, showing that - once again - NZTA is light years behind the times.

Currently NZTA has only 'warranted' 32 of the 70-odd schools in Hamilton for the low speed zones (though over half of the primary schools are covered), and Councillors are concerned that the travelling public will become confused as to which schools are and aren't covered by the low speed zones. It will be much easier to promote and educate around the low speed zones, and general road safety for vulnerable people, if every school is treated the same.

That's what the City Council intends to do - and will use static signage [see photo of static signage in Brisbane at right] whether or not NZTA is happy, in order to implement the policy in an affordable and timely way.

Longer & Heavier Trucks on our roads?

Despite overwhelming opposition from everyone, it seems, other than the road freight industry – including local councils throughout the Waikato, the Government and its transport agencies have determined that longer (by 10%) and heavier (by 18%) trucks should be allowed on routes they determine, which apparently includes the key route of Auckland-Hamilton-Tauranga.

Safety (for other road users) and road maintenance cost issues are obviously not a priority in this particular decision, and it is concerning that local Councils now appear not to have any say over whether such vehicles are allowed to use their roads – initially the proposal was that local authorities would have to approve any routes within their jurisdiction that were available to the new longer/heavier vehicles.

Hamilton City Council was not prepared to consider any such routes unless it was given a guarantee that additional road maintenance costs caused by the bigger vehicles would be met by the users, or the Government. The Government appears to have got round this problem, though its apparent intention just to decree that it’s allowed. At the moment, the likely routes have not been decided, with the NZTA studying this issue.

Effects of Govt's latest transport changes (Dave's report to Council Transport Committee, October '09)

The Government’s September announcement of transport funding streams for the next 3 years – made through the NZ Transport Authority – will cause Hamilton City serious funding shortfall problems in some areas of transport delivery.

There are significant bus fare increases being brought in as a direct result of cuts to previously indicated bus operational subsidies, and also the proposed axing of a number of cycling and walking projects we had approved in our LTCCP over the next 3 years – again as a result of direct cuts to subsidy funding that was previously available.

The Government has made available only a 3% cost increase to EW for bus services in the current year – when normal costs for existing services (i.e. no new services included) are predicted to rise by 7%. Future years will receive no increases at all. As a result EW is proposing to increase main bus fares from December 2009 by between 12% and 30%, with further significant increases being planned for July 2010 and July 2011. None of the planned new services will be able to be introduced, including connections to new suburbs, and some existing services are under threat.

The shortfall in the amount needed to meet the normal bus operations EW had predicted for Hamilton is only a few $million over the next 3 years, while at the same time $billions of new money has been allocated for s State Highway upgrade that will help Hamiltonians reach the Auckland Motorway traffic jam 5 minutes earlier. The fantastic growth in bus patronage that Hamilton has experienced in the last 5 years will be in jeopardy as a result of this short-sighted policy.

More than half of our planned cycleway and walkway/cycleway projects over the next 3 years will have to be either delayed or completely scrapped as a result of no subsidy money at all being made available for them. It is likely that all of the projects we do undertake over this time will be through 100% ratepayer funding.

At the same time, the community transport work, such as the organisation and promotion of the successful walking school buses, has only received guaranteed funding for the current year, with nothing yet allocated for the following two years and a review into that whole area of work being conducted.

It is reasonable for Governments to cut their cloth according to their means – if you haven’t got the income, you have to be financially careful. But to significantly increase spending in the very largest area of expenditure, while hacking at the rats and mice that in some communities – like Hamilton – can make a real difference is, as the old adage suggests: “penny wise and pound foolish.” The Government’s spending decisions show a philosophical bias that will make it very hard for Hamilton to implement its transport strategies, and will cost us in the long run.