LISA PRAGER: FOLLOW THE MONEY

It was such a shock to find myself labelled as one of two 'cycleway saboteurs' in Hayden Donnell’s feature in the winter ‘Metro’, that I needed to go for a bike ride to clear my head.

No thanks! had been my reply to Hayden’s request for an interview: “I am over all the lies, misinformation and propaganda coming from Bike Auckland.” And I didn’t even know then what I know now, and that is the astonishing fact that Auckland Transport (AT) has paid Bike Auckland over $1 million dollars to support the cycleway roll out across the isthmus.

The five page magazine article (made possible by NZ On Air’s Public Interest Journalism Fund and illustrated with cute Busy, Busy World characters) is a biased, petty puffed up opinion piece. But it got me thinking about how and why did cycleways become such a source of anger and animosity. Who on earth would gain from that? You? Me? Big business?

It was 2017 when AT informed Westmere about the Waitematā Safe Routes plan to remove the parking along Garnet Road and shift the bus stop 4m, destroying the five-minute parking outside Garnet Dairy in order to create dedicated cycle lanes. Neighbours and customers immediately started asking me how can we stop this? Already 16 beloved 70-year-old street trees up the road in Surrey Crescent had been removed in readiness for the cycleway fever sweeping the world, a truly ironic and confounding response to climate change.

So, I leafleted 100 letterboxes either side of my Garnet Road cafe. The next morning a large group of residents and retailers gathered on the pedestrian traffic island at the top of the road to talk. Feeling unheard, we formed a protest camp as a hub from where we collected over 4000 signatures on a petition to protect the trees AT was itching to fell, to stop them making inline bus stops which sit dangerously in the middle of a road.

The volunteers of Occupy Garnet Road were supported with food and water by Great North Road, Grey Lynn businesses who had already stopped AT turning their precinct into a bus interchange. AT was horrified that its plans had been foiled, its consultation proved fake and flawed. The law was on our side. But bulldozers were already ripping up the wide berms on Surrey Crescent for the cycleway to be laid across residents' driveways. The unused asphalt scar is still there today.

When we strung up our protest banners, the bike lobby were so enraged they crept out at night with box cutters to slash our signs and tents. They even took the time to boycott my business by posting spurious online slurs.

But, the most dangerous of AT’s street calming obstacles was an unfinished, unmarked island at the T junction of Richmond Road and Surrey Crescent. It was an accident waiting to happen and I worried that my elderly mum would be side swiped as cars piled up in quick succession with no room to manoeuvre. AT, Mayor Phil Goff, Pippa Coom and the entire Waitematā Local Board were informed of the public’s concern. AT then agreed to fix the hazard. Christmas came and went and still it did nothing.

Finally, out of frustration, I took direct action. The media had a field day when I was taken away in the rainbow cop car with my stone-breaking log splitter. Exposed, AT instructed Dempsey Wood (the roading contractor) to reinstate the area as it was originally. A community win for common sense.

The constant attempt to destroy my good name and reputation is tiresome; at least my complaint against Radio New Zealand was upheld by the Broadcasting Complaints Authority. So as far as I’m concerned, this latest attack in ‘Metro' and the revelation of AT’s financial contract with Bike Auckland is proof that the bike lobby is not an independent voice for cycling, but a hired hand. Perhaps now that the veracity of their claim has come into question, they will stop trying to convince us theirs is an “almost universally popular plan”, cause it ain’t!

(LISA PRAGER)  PN Westmere