A Dutch mobility expert says New Zealand's car-dominated urban streets have more in common with the United States than he expected.
Amsterdam University social scientist Marco te Brömmelstroet argued the way streets in cities are designed comes down to deep trade-offs societies rarely debate openly - and that designing only for cars tends to lose when people are asked the right questions.
Speaking to Q+A, he recalled the issue crystallised on his first day, cycling with his family, when a driver in an SUV pulled up and shouted that his 11-year-old son was a danger.
"So, why is my son a danger to you while you are driving the 2000kg truck?" he recalled asking her. "And she said, 'Well, he's wobbling.'"
That answer, he said, exposed a gap in how different countries think about streets.
"Children who wobble — that's sort of the starting point of how we designed our streets, so children are allowed to wobble," he said.
"They have the right to wobble, and you are bringing in the danger."
Put to him that Amsterdam — flat, dense and cycling before it had cars — offered little to suburban Auckland, te Brömmelstroet said he would not argue the Dutch model should be copied everywhere, partly because the Netherlands had not gone far enough itself.
He said the fix was less about the mode of transport than often about redesigning cities so people did not have to travel so far in the first place.
"The key solutions doesn't necessarily lie into cars versus bikes versus public transport. First and foremost, we need to think about how can we create systems that are not dependent on these energy consuming expansions that we have catered for in the last decades, and think much more about proximity," he told Q+A.
"Sometimes the bicycle can be a part of the solution. Sometimes the e-bike is a big part of the solution in topography in challenged cities. Sometimes it's public transport."
Te Brömmelstroet said a roads first model externalised costs and roading infrastructure had a finite lifespan in many instances.
"If you drive a car and you love the freedom of driving the car, you should be aware that 60% of the cost of driving that car is actually externalised in society," he said.
For the full interview, watch the video above
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air
SHARE ME