Auckland mayoral hopefuls have slammed a proposal to remove roadside parking spaces to make way for cycle and bus lanes.
Auckland Transport (AT) released its draft parking strategy last week - proposing 1200km of Auckland's main roads lose their car parks in favour of transport infrastructure, footpaths, mobility spaces and bike and bus lanes over the next 10 years.
Candidates Viv Beck and Leo Molloy told AM on Monday AT's proposal needs a lot of work.
"They need a bloody good hiding, that's what they need," Molloy said.
"I think it's outrageous that you actually go out to consultation on something and say we have a predetermined agenda. I think we need to change as a city but this is not the way to do it," Beck said.
Beck said having additional bike lanes wouldn't encourage her to bike into the office.
"I think there are people who do like to cycle. I think there is an increase in the number of people that have been using them [cycleways] to get around but the reality is for a lot of people, they see the cycle lanes empty," Beck said.
"Even when you have growth - and I have seen figures that indicate growth but it's off a very small base - I think certainly there are recreational cyclists like me that quite like to have a secure space but in terms of taking over huge amounts of road space there does need to be a stronger case made."
Andrew McGill, AT's head of integrated network planning, defended the proposal to ditch kerbside parking telling Newshub Live at 8pm on Tuesday "change is necessary".
"I think once people understand and we explain more some of the detail behind the proposals and the rationale for doing it, there'll be more accepting of what's being done - but I also understand that it's going to take time," he said.
"We're not planning to just take out car parking but over the next decade, whenever we have a project coming along a key road… we want to be able to look at the parking lane and say, 'Do we really need that or is it better serving the people of Auckland to turn that into a bus lane?'"
He said AT was targeting "very specific" areas across the Auckland region.
Molloy said his big issue with AT's plan is it proposes to build combined cycle and bus lanes.
"What I would say is look at the Lake Dunstan opportunity, where you go in first with your infrastructure and you build great cycleways that add value to people's lives," he told AM.
"Clearly the opportunity in this city is going to the Botany area and you follow it in with good infrastructure, you make cycleways dedicated cycleways.
"It has to be an 'or' thing, a carriageway or a cycleway, it can't be both. We are now trying to retrofit cycleways to carriageways.
"Look at Mission Bay, Tamaki Drive is a disaster. They have built this camelback arrangement and it's for people that cycle once a week and they go about 2km/h and get in everyone's way, so all the cyclists are back out on the roads again holding up the traffic doing 40km/h. The model doesn't work."
Beck told AM a better case needs to be made for the plan.
"I think the city is changing, there is no question about that, we can't keep doing things the way we have always done them but the problem is at the moment a lot of people don't see the sense in what we are doing, the strategy needs to be reviewed."
Watch the full interview above.
