Reshaping Streets: that’s a big fat YES please
Good street change is stupidly hard in NZ, partly thanks to some weird little fossils in legislation. “Reshaping Streets” will fix those, making it a bit easier to improve our streets! But, surprise (sigh) it needs your help to get over the line…
***FAST SUBMISSION SHORTCUT: SCROLL DOWN TO THE TYPING CAT****
The “Reshaping Streets” package is a bundle of little tweaks to legislation that are desperately needed.
Collectively, they’ll make it a little bit easier (a bit less insanely hard) for communities and councils to retrofit local roads and streets actually serve our neighbourhoods properly.
That’s all. It’s just fixing some bizarre knots in outdated law, making good things a bit less blocked.
There’s literally no downside to these wee tweaks – just lots of win-wins. And it’s not often we can say that.
“No brainer” policy: too much for some no-brainers?
“This is a total no-brainer” we hear you say. “I don’t need to do anything, this will just sail through.”
But bizarrely, there’s attack ads, petitions and concern trolling being run against it, with statements like “this is revealing the government’s anti-car ideology” and “Critically, nowhere in a pilot is the ability of motorists, the overwhelming majority, to get around. That is why this proposal is anti-democratic“. Bless.
These things are being run by people who absolutely do know better, given they’re in leadership roles (Transport spokesman) and have teams of researchers (Newstalk ZB host, political party). And with the high profile of these folks and the extraordinary misinformation (outright lies) they’re stating about what’s proposed, it’s likely this will whip up some submissions against Reshaping Streets.
What are they scared of?
The heart of the complaints are that changes would happen “without consultation”, and that they would be to “ban [popular thing]”
Let’s look and see if Simeon Brown et al are right to be shaking in their boots and shaking their fists, or if it’s actually… good stuff!
- “there won’t be consultation” – cheer up Simeon, it’s good news! Enabling pilots, trials and tactical deployments enables MUCH BETTER consultation than we’re able to have right now.
- Communities can experience changes in trial, adaptable, minimum-viable-product, prototype forms – enabling far more people to give far more richly informed feedback that can focus on important stuff, as the little bugs and tweaks can get changed immediately.
- “The government will be BANNING PARENTING!!!!! (AKA school drop-offs!!!!!)
What it’s actually for
You’re worried about schools, Simeon? Great, let’s talk schools
School dropoffs, not children being safer? Weird thing to be scaremongering about….
Leaving aside the weird priorities of hater types, what will actually become easier (less painfully difficult) with Reshaping Streets is schools being *empowered* (rather than blocked from) trying out, with their school community, different ways of managing street space so the school-gate zone is happier, safer for kids, and less stressful for adults.
Here’s some examples of the great things schools are wanting to trying out which have been ridiculously hard under the old legislative structures, and which Reshaping Streets will make much less hard for those who want to do them:
- Trying out rearrangements of street function in the Dunedin neighbourhood with no less than five schools clustered together
- Te Rā / Here Comes the Sun – Pt Chevalier School – a full-day festival to inspire imagination for how to make the street (with a kindy and a primary school) work better for families and residents
- Auckland Safe School Streets – a raft of different schools trying things out. From meeting pou for dropoffs and pickups plus walking, scooting and biking busses closer to school, through to reshaping the street environment so it’s calmer and safer.
- New Plymouth (a long-battling pioneer, forced to go through formal nationwide trials for the simplest, most logical things) were eventually able to make small permanent improvements to some school streets. (We salute the poor burned-out souls who made it happen!)
And this is just the schools stuff.
The Reshaping Streets package also makes lots of other basic good stuff a bit easier to do. Once again for those in the back: this is simply removing some barriers for towns that want to.
Read up here in depth, or here’s a small sample:
- Neighbours instigating small trials and tweaks to their residential streets to make them safer, friendlier places that support community, not suppress it
- Putting in proper bus shelters (yes, really hard and inefficient right now)
- Play Streets, Street BBQ evenings and other short, temporary, resident-led restrictions to some traffic movements in favour of more chalking, more chatting, more cinema, more cheerios
- Local businesses trying ways to make their street more of a destination and part of the community – like Drews Avenue in Whanganui
So, unsurprisingly (except perhaps to a few folk) – this is good for families, good for businesses and neighbourhoods. And it’s good for our civic life – these kinds of changes all help make streets more supportive of human exchange, rather than being so dominated by the movement and storage of those big metal boxes.
So please say a hard YES to the Reshaping Streets package. Submissions close 11.59 Monday 19th!
Read more if you like – there’s loads for everything Reshaping Streets here, you can even watch their information webinars, and see Further Reading below.
SUBMISSION TIME!
It closes on 19th Sept, that’s Monday!
I’ve got 3 minutes before my noodles are ready / I have to fetch the kids. This is good, tell me what to do
Send an email to reshaping.streets@nzta.govt.nz
Subject line: “Submission on Reshaping Streets”
Body: Include your name, email address, organisation (if you’re speaking for one) and whether you’d like to be heard.
Then put something like the below:
It’s important to me that New Zealand can more retrofit its existing streets and roads so they’re better suited to support a more sustainable, fairer, more accessible and more prosperous future.
I support all the proposals in the Reshaping Streets package.
That’s all you need! They’re honestly all good.
I’ve got a healthy 10 minutes to play with…
If you also have a tolerance for super-dull government submissions interfaces, you can confidently jump in and send off a positive submission through their 20-question form, picking the generally “yes support, streets for people good” option each time.
Either way, a few minutes very well spent. Bravo!
Further Reading:
- Stuff article on the Reshaping Streets package
- A good summary of why we need to hurry making safer streets for school trips (Stuff)
- UK makes Play Streets much easier with a legislative change – Talk Wellington
- School Streets initiatives in the UK having great effects on children’s and families’ happiness and health – Child Health Initiative’s Global Research Hub
Image credits:
Banner picture: Jolisa Gracewood
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