Climate change: The first few steps are crucial on road to cutting carbon emissions
Todd Niall is the senior Auckland affairs reporter for Stuff. OPINION: Aucklands target of halving carbon emissions by 2030 is huge, but the critical early steps towards getting there are relatively small . Yet, there are already some warning signs about how that is going. The big role of road transport (38%) in the regions emissions means much less driving needs to occur if a 64% cut in transport emissions is to happen. One of the big shifts is trebling public transports share of the journeys made in Auckland, to nearly 25%. READ MORE: * Auckland community furious as drivers hit new cycle lane protectors * Electric cars, high density housing not enough to hit Auckland emissions targets: Report * What's the point of buses if no-one uses them? Since that target was set at the end of 2020 in the Climate Plan , Covid-19 has reduced patronage by around 40% while general traffic has returned largely to normal. So things are going backwards. To be attractive enough, public transport will need to be frequent, affordable, reliable, in the right places, and appealing to access in all weathers. The 2021 Covid-19 wave has contributed to nearly 2000 bus services a day being cancelled at times in July and August, and dozens of train and ferry services scrubbed daily. Two-thirds of that is due to sickness, the rest though is a shortage of 400 bus drivers, as other work proves more appealing. Auckland Council has funded an 8% pay rise on minimum hourly rates, but the split shifts and 14-hour spreads of work remain a deterrent, and permitted by legislation. In another part of the mode-shift puzzle, cyclings share of trips especially local ones needs to rise seven-fold. Auckland Transports first of many projects to create low-cost protected cycleways has hit trouble on Greenhithes Upper Harbour Drive. Local heat is rising as motorists continue to hit the freshly-installed concrete lane separators , with many calling for their removal. Whether the changes are the problem, or whether its the community preparation that failed is not clear, but AT needs to understand swiftly how to make this work, to avert a growing pushback to encourage alternatives to driving. Maybe the return of foreign backpackers, and work-permitted migrants will ease the bus, train and ferry crew shortages, but living in hope looks like a gamble. With hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in electric ferries and buses, and more frequent services all to shift travel out of cars focus needs to be put on ensuring the working conditions are good enough to provide a suitably skilled and stable workforce. A multi-sector working group to find industry-wide improvements for bus drivers, has been running for three years. The citys leaders need to ensure these simple foundations to encouraging less driving roll out smoothly and with public buy-in. Some of this might come next week when the council releases its nuts-and-bolts plan of how the big targets will be met, in the Transport Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP). Calculating percentages of how many fewer kilometres should be driven, how big the shift into public transport and cycling needs to be, does not mean that it will actually happen. Plans and strategies, and even major investments, will achieve nothing without public understanding of what needs to change and why. There wont be big shifts, without those first small steps be taken.