Smart Cities or Silent Strangulation? Grey Lynn Questions the Agenda

Community Pushback on Auckland Transport plans in Grey Lynn

About 25 people gather at a Friday lunchtime meeting in the Labelle Poste Café, in the Surrey Crescent village. Rock The Vote NZ, Communities and Residents (C&R) local board member candidates are present, as is Mike Lee the Auckland Councilor for this area.

Sympathy is with the worried-looking business owners, concerned because survival is already challenging and they now perceive another looming threat to their livelihoods.

These business owners are utterly against a single Auckland Transport (AT) road ‘improvement’ happening in their precious shopping village, as they have seen the results of similar work done in a number of other high streets. Queen St and Karangahape Rd come to mind, where shop owners are left wondering where the customers have gone.

The roadworks, road narrowing, cycle lane installation, inhibited access and parking and general disturbance in these communities have taken a toll. The cycle lanes are conspicuously empty as this mode of transport we now know does not inspire the average commuter.

Two AT planning workers want to update the community, trying their best to placate the concerns of the aggravated gathering, but try as hard as they do, this type of encounter is not really in their skill set. They try to explain their paid parking suggestion in the nearby neighbourhood but their bleat, that the village shops will not be touched, goes unheard.

Business owners have heard this kind of talk before. They have lost trust, and suspect a slow boiling frog, approach, where AT end up getting what they want, and customer car parking is sacrificed. Shop owner Lisa calls it out-“No this has to stop!”

Anyone who has attended one of these meetings before will recognise the frustrating pattern where the AT left and right hands don’t seem connected. The typical responses are… ‘I don’t know about that’, or ‘it’s not my role’ or ‘that happened before I worked for AT’, or ‘I have no authority to give you that assurance.’

The gathering steams as the impotence of the AT representatives becomes obvious to all.

The well-meaning AT representatives lament afterwards that they were open to other ideas, but that the meeting attendees were not listening; instead, united in their cry for ‘no more change of any type!’

Hopefully the AT pair get the picture… ‘not another finger to be lifted, thank-you’, but the question hangs unsatisfied - will they impart that message to their AT seniors?

Rock The Vote NZ is also suspicious about where this is heading in future. The repeating pattern of cycle lanes and narrowed roads is evident in other international cities and it goes along with more cameras and car free ideologies. It’s the scene where corporation needs seem to be a priority and small business owners struggle. We wonder about our future freedom in this world of surveillance. Councils find themselves in over-spend and vulnerable to government over reach solutions.

It’s a trait of the 20 minute ‘Smart Cities’ spoken of in the UN’s 2030 agenda. The WEF has stated, “You will own nothing and be happy” and the move toward a carless city creeps forward.

When will people draw a line and say, ‘NO, no more – STOP!

Maybe it’s today?