Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
At Copenhagen (COP15, 2009), New Zealand agreed to reduce GHG emissions by 10-20
per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, subject to an international agreement on limiting
temperature rises to not more than 2
o
C and developed countries making similar efforts to New
Zealand. There was also agreement to pursue a longer term target of a 50 per cent reduction
in emissions below 1990 levels by 2050. The latest Net Position Report (Ministry for the
Environment, 2009), however, reveals the difficulties in that emissions continue to rise and
that reducing emissions requires more than target setting. In 2007, New Zealand emitted 75.6
levels. New Zealand has quite weak targets relative to the UK, which seeks to reduce emissions
by 12.5 per cent under Kyoto, by 10-20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 at COP15 (at
the EU level) and has a national target of an 80 per cent reduction in emissions below 1990
levels by 2050 (Climate Change Act, 2008).
Auckland offers a high quality of life for many of its residents. Much of this quality of life
is based on the dispersed city model, which can be viewed as a variant of the Broadacre City
(Lloyd Wright, 1935), where large plot sizes and largely two-storey detached housing
predominate. This includes some high-quality neighbourhoods, with access to a higher density
urban centre, and also surrounding city parks, coastline, beaches and open spaces. Movement
around Auckland is facilitated by use of the motor car and perhaps the form of the city reflects
its major growth period in the 1950s and 1960s, when planning around the motor car was
more fashionable. There are three urban motorways feeding into the city centre near Waitemata
Harbour (the Northern, Southern and Auckland-Kumeu motorways). 80 per cent of Aucklanders
travel to work by private car, and only five per cent as pedestrians and one per cent by cycling.
Six per cent of Aucklanders travel to work by public transport (2006 Census), and use of
public transport for non-work trips is also marginal. The average resident makes forty-one
public transit trips per year. These levels are similar to those found in Los Angeles (5 per
cent public transport for the LA census area; and forty-nine public transit trips per year).
Public transit patronage has suffered a large decline since the 1950s; in 1954, public transit
accounted for 58 per cent of trips and the car less than a third, whilst public transit averaged
290 trips per year (Utley et al., 2011; Hickman et al., 2012a).
Mees (2010) recounts the story of public transit usage in Auckland collapsing over four
decades, as the result of direct planning for motorisation, but not particularly related to the
lobbying influence of a motor industry. The city's transport planners deliberately adopted a
transport policy based around the car. In 1950, a consultancy report from William Halcrow
and Partners recommended the electrification of the suburban rail system, the construction of
a central city tunnel, and the reorganisation of bus services to act as feeders to the rail system.
A new multi-modal public transit agency would provide coordination, and spending on urban
roads was to be curtailed. Auckland's city engineer, however, opposed the strategy, especially
the plans to restrict spending on the roads, and he argued that the roads should take priority.
The national transport minister of the time, W. S. Goosman, famously said to a journalist
at the opening of a section of New Zealand's first motorway, 'My boy, the future of Auckland
is with the motor car.' The then head of geography at the University of Auckland also called
the railway scheme a 'potential white elephant', one that 'may prejudice the chances of
improvement to the highway system'. In 1954, the City Council voted with the city engineer's
recommendation to reject the consultant's report, and in 1955 agreed an alternative transportation
master plan for Metropolitan Auckland, cancelling the rail scheme and diverting funding into
