The Lawrey Story

Clogged roads are becoming a more regular annoyance for Nelsonians. Matt Lawrey argues the solution is in dropping our fascination with quasitanks and putting foot, bus and pedal-power first.

Listening to all the recent talk about how the time has finally come for New Zealanders to take climate change seriously, I couldn’t help thinking of one of my favourite quotes.

It comes from writer Alan Ball’s screenplay for the Academy Award-winning movie American Beauty, and it goes like this: “Never underestimate the power of denial.”

I’m essentially an optimist but, when it comes to climate change, I worry that we lack the maturity, leaders and electoral system to really make a difference. I worry that, after a sustained period of grief, we will once again return to our traditional state of inertial-inducing denial.

I hope I’m wrong, but the truth is that for every New Zealander I see on TV distraught over the impact of climate change, I see another proudly driving a brand-new, gas-guzzling, planet-killing, double cab ute. And, no, I’m not talking about farmers or tradies, I’m talking about people who see nothing wrong in using what’s basically a tank for getting to the office and dropping the kids off at school.

Statistics New Zealand tells us that nationwide transport makes up 90% of the country’s household emissions and that in Nelson-Tasman the figure is 94%. So, if Nelsonians do actually care about climate change, there’s plenty of room for action. It’s true, there are encouraging signs in the shape of Nelson’s soon-to-be launched improved public transport service and the Tasman District Council finally embracing separated cycle lanes and safer roundabouts, but there’s so much more we can do.

One of the most effective steps we could take is to stop the madness of urban sprawl that, despite everything we know about the importance of arable land, remains Nelson and Tasman’s number one planning response to population growth. You know how for much of the day the roads in and out of both Nelson and Richmond are now both clogged with cars, most of them with only one person in them? Well, that is largely the result of urban sprawl.

The next thing we could do is finally get real about the need to persuade Nelsonians not to drive everywhere, all the time in their cars, all by themselves. Until now attempts to do this have been based on the idea that you can create change by offering people choice. It’s a tempting and politically palatable proposition but the state of our roads tells us it hasn’t really worked. Give people more choice and most of them will keep doing what they’ve always been doing. The best way to achieve what’s known as ‘mode shift’ is to actually prioritise walking, cycling and micro-mobility over cars, and one of the most effective and cheapest ways of doing that is by, wherever possible, giving pedestrians, cyclists and scooter riders the right of way. For a great example of this, check out the Railway Reserve as it runs through much of Stoke where motorists have been happily giving way to pedestrians and cyclists for over 20 years.

New Zealanders have a romantic view of themselves as egalitarians but, when it comes to the road, it’s clear that most of us still believe that might is right. The bigger and noisier the vehicle, the more everyone else has to get out of its way. If we could get past this primitive mindset and start designing our transport network to prioritise the kinds of transport we’re supposed to be encouraging, we might actually get somewhere.

Not only would we finally have a chance of doing something about congestion, and all the planet-warming emissions that come with it, we just might end up healthier, happier and richer in the process.