Auckland's Waterfront needs Big Steps

On Wednesday 6th Nov I had the pleasure of introducing and moderating a lunchtime panel session for Trans-Tasman Business Circle members about Auckland's Waterfront Vision. It was hosted by Downer New Zealand and Kensington Swan in the KPMG building on the Viaduct.

The three big-picture planning issues for Auckland's waterfront development that I talked about concentrated on the downtown edge of our waterfront...

This graphic shows the area of the waterfront that is deemed public space. In fact my graphic is on the generous side, because an increasing amount of Queens Wharf is being taken by parking and traffic (see also), and Te Whero itself is mainly a carpark. So what you see here is an optimistic depiction of Auckland's current downtown public waterfront space...

This is Baltimore's inner harbour waterfront. Its equivalent of Auckland's downtown waterfront.

The difference is that Baltimore has been working on its downtown waterfront for more than 40 years. That's the typical duration for downtown city waterfront regeneration to occur.

This image is to the same scale as the one shown here for Auckland.

Here is the amount of public space that is provided on Baltimore's downtown waterfront. You can see the spaces that are used for parking. Some buildings that I have excluded are for public facilities such as a museum and an aquarium - but I have not included those in the public space area.

You can readily observe that Baltimore's waterfront space is more than double Auckland's in area - which is piecemeal and disconnected by comparison.

The second big picture was a Princes Wharf case study. 

This is one image that was used in early designs for Princes Wharf. It was published in local newspapers. It was an expression of the vision for Princes Wharf - and showed generous areas of connected public space. Other visions expressed around the same time advocated for the pedestrianisation of Quay Street all the way through to and onto Queens Wharf, and up Queen Elizabeth Square.

But Auckland ended up with a hotel, lots of apartments, and lots of car-parking on Princes Wharf. My point was that Auckland is good at visions - but woeful in their implementation.

Big Steps are needed. And the footprints need to be protected, not filled in later.

And my last big step. The green area shows the likely extent of Auckland's downtown waterfront (it includes Marsden and Captain Cook wharves, excludes the Port).

It also includes a transformed Quay Street from Princes Wharf to Marsden Wharf (this vision is in the Auckland Plan by the way - perhaps with part of Quay Street for light rail - but not as we see it now.)

And here we come to the problem that needs to be solved by the public will - not by Auckland's traffic engineers.

The yellow arrows show the challenges Auckland has in achieving good pedestrian connectivity North/South between waterfront areas and city. Fanshaw separates Victoria Park from Wynyard Quarter. This separation needs to be connected or bridged. Princes Wharf needs to be connected better into the city. And Auckland Council has let traffic take over the People's Wharf - Queens Wharf. The public don't like it. It's a hazard.

Traffic engineers are modelling what might happen if traffic that was on Quay Street was shifted onto Custom Street (shown here as the red line running through to Fanshaw). But because our traffic planners don't seem to get that Auckland and Aucklanders want to see their city and waterfront more walkable - they don't want to change traffic volumes. Status quo. In fact it's worse than that. In their dreams they would like to widen Custom Street and Fanshaw Street. Imagine how easy it would be to cross it as a pedestrian walking down Queen Street....

Sorry guys. No good. Big steps needed. Get un-necessary traffic out of the CBD - not through the CBD.

And to finish, here's what Boston did to connect its waterfront into the CBD. Sure Boston is a bigger city than Auckland - but not much bigger. If you look you can Boston's equivalent of the red line I drew above.

But it's a green line...

I've put this yellow line in so you can see the alignment I'm talking about. Basically it's a linear green park at street level. The big step that Boston took to deal with its waterfront traffic, and to connect its CBD into the waterfront for pedestrians and cyclists, was to underground the traffic corridor. Cost $14.6 billion. Big step.

Maybe Auckland can't afford that sized step - but big planning and council steps are needed to realise Auckland's waterfront vision. Take it to the next level. Don't let cars take over.