Auckland Council has unanimously voted to turn central Auckland into a car-free zone.
The trial, which will begin next year, calls for all non-essential vehicles to be kept out of the country's largest city.
Auckland Council's Ludo Campbell-Reid spoke to TVNZ's Breakfast this morning about the design and what it could mean for Auckland central.
Mr Campbell-Reid said, "It's a completely new plan for the city, so pretty bold and courageous".
"It's a plan to stop any sort of discretionary coming in to the city centre, so if you don't need to be downtown, you're not going to be committed in the future to come to downtown.
"Those people who do need to be there – so, critical businesses, servicing, emergency vehicles, people with mobility impairments – will be allowed to move into the city, but the plan is a comprehensive plan to discourage and to prevent people from driving through the city centre and allowing them to go around."
Queen Street will be shut off to vehicles as part of the plan, which Mr Campbell-Reid called "the exciting part".
"It's a date with destiny in many respects. Everyone we talked to has said, 'Why don't you just do it?', so this is something that has been in many people’s dreams for many, many years. Back in the ’70s, it was proposed and it never happened."
He said of why the plans got the go ahead for 2019, "Cities require certain things to be in place for these things to occur.
"You need the right vision; you need the right impetus, which maybe is a crisis or an opportunity; you need a plan; you need a budget; and you need leadership. At the moment, we've got all those pieces in place with the mayor, councillor [Chris] Darby, the chair of our planning committee – all councillors voted unanimously yesterday.
"Queen Street then becomes the light rail corridor, or a tram up the middle of Queen Street, which means that will then be pedestrianised. If you pedestrianise Queen Street, you need to think about all the streets that touch Queen Street, which means you could pedestrianise the entire downtown Queen Street valley."
Mr Campbell-Reid said the benefit was for "people".
"People are the economic powerhouse for a city," he explained. "It's about building a pedestrian haven for downtown, which will enliven the city at night and daytime and will provide just huge economic benefits for the city".
He said it wasn't a hard sell for central Auckland businesses, saying, "Ultimately, public transport is the way people get to the city".
"We'll finish the city rail link by 2024; we would like to build a light rail within the next five or six years; the new bus network is going to be lifting Auckland's patronage in terms of public transport by about 370 per cent – that's thousands and thousands of new people every single day. It's a lot of people being brought into downtown, which will enliven all shops and restaurants."
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