Te Ara Mua -Future Streets: An Encounter with Business-As-Usual Transport Planning

Abstract

Background Future Streets is a street redesign intervention study that aims to slow traffic, change driver behaviour and make walking and cycling easier and safer in Mangere, a suburban neighbourhood in Auckland, New Zealand. It is a collaborative project between research team, local community and the city’s transport agency. Community engagement, evidence-based design innovation and outcome evaluation are primarily the responsibility of the research team while responsibility for infrastructure funding and delivery lies with Auckland Transport. Four years on the new infrastructure is largely in place, and follow-up measures of transport mode use, resident perceptions and air quality are planned for 2017. Not with standing a shared commitment to the project’s vision of street design innovation, the collaboration and implementation process has been challenging. In 2015, two years into the project, an independent interview-based study examined the collaborative process. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four researchers and six transport agency personnel. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, a coding frame established, and data subsequently coded and analysed thematically. Results • Research and infrastructure delivery timelines were out of step – a four year research grant was aligned to a transport project that would take 6-7 years applying business-as-usual processes. • The intervention budget was initially low and/or uncertain. Researchers pushed hard for further funding, whereas the agency norm was to design and deliver to the available budget. • Researcher priorities were to engage residents in participatory design, and explore and test new ideas iteratively. Participatory design processes were not well understood by the agency. Agency priorities were to design, procure and deliver. Researchers had limited understanding of the time-consuming statutory steps required pre-delivery and of the complexities of procuring infrastructure funding from multiple sources. • Project governance and decision-making were loose in the early design stages. This allowed flexibility but also contributed to frustrations and delays. • Critical decision points highlighted the ‘cultural divide’ between parties resulting in relationship strain but also learning of the other side’s priorities, pressures and constraints. Conclusions Non-business-as-usual funding and planning mechanisms are needed to trial innovative street designs. Researcher-practitioner partnerships will benefit from: upfront negotiation of governance structures; explicit acknowledgement of the diverse drivers and constraints within which each party operates; relationship building; and early confirmation of an allocated budget for new infrastructure. Despite the difficulties encountered, a shared commitment to the vision endured, the research timeline was renegotiated and funding was forthcoming to complete a non-business-as-usual street intervention.