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Happy 50th, Auckland Harbour Bridge

Home » Blog » Su Yin Khoo » Happy 50th, Auckland Harbour Bridge

By Su Yin Khoo

A couple of thousand Aucklanders decided to walk over the Harbour Bridge to celebrate its birthday.

Now, Sunday morning sleep-ins are sacred to me, as any of my flatmates and the Good trailwalking team will tell you. But I wouldn't have missed the chance to cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge for the world.

See, I don’t own a motorised vehicle which means that I have to rely heavily on public transport—bleurgh!—or pedal power which I’m acquiring a taste for. To me, Auckland has always been the City of Cars.

Low emissions

Every time the subject of solving Auckland’s traffic problems has been brought up, the only solution proposed is to build more roads for unsustainable modes of transportation. Sure, we’re evolving the car industry with fancy fuel hybrids and what not, but do you really want to finish War and Peace while waiting in traffic?

It’s pathetic that I can’t walk or cycle six measly kilometres to visit friends on the Shore or vice versa whenever I damned well please. Bus? That’ll be (at least) a two-fare stage each way, thank you very much. And the Fullers ferry monopoly means that the only time they operate in Birkenhead is about four in the afternoon on a Sunday. Choice, eh?

So got up at the ungodly hour of Before Noon I did to join some thousand others (including mate of Rhys Darby, Vaughan Rowsell who’s cycling the length of New Zealand to raise money for The Agency for Spinal Concerns) at Point Erin to send a loud and clear message to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA): stop making feeble excuses and make the bridge accessible to everybody already. Chop, chop.

This is not about being greener-than-thou. This is not about promoting the healthy benefits of ‘burning fat, not oil’. This is about me, absconding from my bed to enjoy the splendour of the Waitemata Harbour on a rare sunny winter’s day.

Here's wishing you a Happy 50th, Auckland Harbour Bridge. I hope it doesn't take another 50 years before I can make the same epic journey again.

Providing it doesn’t rain, Su Yin Khoo cycles to the Good magazine office where she draws pictures all day

Comments

Annabel McAleer
good.net.nz
 
Sun May 24, 2009 @ 11:15 PM
I just watched TV3's coverage of the march and think I must've walked over a different bridge today! It was an incredibly polite, good-natured, smiley march -- more like a stroll, really. Everyone was thanking the police officers nicely and cars were tooting and waving. And the motorway had been blocked off for miles!

If that was 'storming' the bridge it sure didn't seem like it. Ridiculous. And not a single mention in the report of the actual reason why thousands of Aucklanders are frustrated enough to get up at an ungodly hour on a Sunday morning and take to the streets. I like your video heaps better Su Yin!
Annabel McAleer
good.net.nz
 
Mon May 25, 2009 @ 10:47 AM
Oooh, some good analysis of police/Transit actions here:
http://leftofthesettingsun.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/never-trust-a-man-with-a-megaphone/

"Most people would have wanted to walk along the clip-ons, because we
wanted to look at the view. The clip-ons are the outer two of a nominal
four north-bound lanes, although the bridge has movable central barrier
so you can have up to six north-bound lanes. Now there’s a lot of
rubbish spoken about the clip-ons, normally as an excuse not to let
people walk on them or attach a bike path. Apparently the weight of
2000 people (about the same weight as 150 cars, by my rough calculations) would be too much for these poor abused structures, so the police herded us into the middle of the bridge over the centre span. Are we paying attention? Four north-bound lanes were blocked for over an hour because some foot traffic couldn’t be allowed on the outer lanes of the bridge, so they had to put us on two of the inner lanes. And apparently, despite weeks of warning, no-one had thought to make arrangements to have a couple of northbound lanes diverted to the other side of the bridge?"
Su Yin
 
Mon May 25, 2009 @ 11:55 AM
Thanks, glad you liked the vid! Regret not taking more footage.

One certainly experienced the amazing camaraderie of Aucklanders yesterday.

My
apologies to the hundreds of motorists who were caught in the snarl but
as Chris mentions in his blog post, it needn't had to end up like that.
What a way to increase car-lovers' hate for pedestrians and cyclists.
Mission accomplished, NZTA.

Unfortunately I will be expecting an exponential increase of the level of abuse towards cyclists following this event.

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