Local boards will take direct control of speed limits, parking, road closures for events and cycleways on their local streets when Auckland Transport is wound back and its road powers move into the Council by the end of October.
Then Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the reform gives local boards new powers “to ensure local accountability and that local communities have a say”.
For east Auckland that means the Howick Local Board decides those matters on local and collector roads, with bus shelters and road art proposed as extra delegations at a Governing Body workshop on Tuesday.
Arterial roads stay with the Governing Body or a new subcommittee.
The workshop split over the rest of the workload: how much day-to-day decision-making should pass to council staff.
Franklin councillor Andrew Baker, whose ward includes Whitford and Beachlands, warned against elected members trying to rule on the roughly 2000 activities happening in the road corridor every day.
“If we start doing that with transport, our offices will have to be bigger because there’ll have to be little beds in there,” he said.
The modelling before the workshop makes his point.
Even under the settings staff recommend, elected members face about 260 decision items a year, on a fortnightly meeting cycle.
Keep tighter control and that swells past 1300 items, and the meetings become weekly.
Staff want a dedicated road controlling authority subcommittee of the Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee to handle the volume, with routine calls such as short-term road closures delegated.
North Shore councillor John Gillon argued for starting tight and loosening the rules later, and pressed for public input rather than “a closed door subcommittee”.
His ward colleague Richard Hills said the proposed 28-day threshold for escalating road closures to politicians misses how disruption is actually felt.
He pointed to three-hour weekday closures of Lake Road that have flooded his phone and social media with complaints, while a 28-day closure of a cul-de-sac might bother nobody.
“That three hours made everyone so angry it felt like twenty-eight days,” he said.
Mayor Wayne Brown had one demand: stop designing every project from scratch.
He dismissed a bus lane example as “yet another bespoke design” and argued standard treatments are what will make delegation to boards and staff safe.
The reform stems from the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Act, passed in April.
Brown called the law “a major victory for the people of Auckland”, pointing to Auckland Transport’s roughly $1.5 billion annual running cost.
The money is the missing piece for boards, with the size of a proposed local transport fund deferred to next year’s Long-term Plan.
The full Auckland Council Governing Body is due to confirm the arrangements at its meeting on Monday 4 August.
