Extracting people from their cars no mean feat

Ten minutes is not very much time when you are trying to save the world.

But then if that is all that you have there is not much point in spending half of it pleading for more. So last month, in the company of a neighbour who holds similar views, I found myself speaking in support of our written submission on the Waipa District Council's annual plan. Our timing wasn't great just after lunch on the second day of their hearings. It showed in the general audience, several of whom demonstrated their ability to multitask with laptops, books and sleep while considering our submission.

I had made the submission because like a lot of people I am worried about climate change and sustainability. Perhaps, unlike many, I've had the recent opportunity to gain a broader perspective through travel. Some three years ago, convinced that time was running out, I extracted myself from the business world and took off to see what was happening in the wider world. A year, travelling mostly through Southeast Asia and Europe, confirmed my concerns. It also showed me that there are solutions and better choices that we can make in New Zealand.

Returning to Cambridge I saw considerable change in the time I had been away. To some extent, this is to be expected however, I am alarmed by the rate and direction this change is taking. The population is growing and the infrastructure is groaning. The same is true of Te Awamutu and I expect many other towns in New Zealand. The biggest ill effect of this growth is traffic.

On any weekday cars loiter, looking for parking spaces in the main shopping streets. Supermarket carparks are invariably at capacity, their client vehicles spilling into adjacent streets. Traffic congestion, though short of gridlock, is now only an incident or accident away from a logjam on Cambridge's historic high bridge several times a day.

Schools have a car parking problem. Perhaps most telling, many of these cars are second and third vehicles within the household. Every working day a stream of other vehicles can be seen leaving homes to make a daily commute to work. Few have more than one occupant. The problem that leaves Cambridge in the morning arrives somewhere, probably Hamilton, within the hour only to return to Cambridge eight hours later.

It is little wonder that the transport sector is New Zealand's single largest contributor to carbon emissions and it is frightening to consider that it is also our fastest-growing polluter.

Plainly, this continuing increase in traffic is not sustainable. The reality of climate change and peak oil makes this a safe prediction. Actually, from an environmental viewpoint, road usage became unsustainable years ago. As a society we simply haven't understood the global budget that we have been exceeding and we still don't.

However, ignorance and denial will not defer the consequences, it will simply make them worse. A recent report prepared for the British Government calls into question what average Britons know, understand and decide to do about climate change. The report indicates real concern over that public's attitude on environmental issues and how it translates into behaviour change. Knowing that something is bad for the environment doesn't mean behaviour will change.

The authors make strong recommendation that government at all levels need to become much more active in helping us out of our cars. It is a message that in that country is being acted upon.

In light of all this, I thought I would look deeper into what our local government is doing to improve the situation. At first I was encouraged because I discovered that Waipa District Council's mission is "to promote the wellbeing of the people of the Waipa District". They plan to achieve this through nine written goals that are peppered with terms such as "foster awareness", "advocacy", "stewardship" and "sustainable development".

With such a handsome selection of key words I expected the troops would be mobilised to inform, encourage and support those living in Waipa to make appropriate changes. There would be a plan to help people into alternative transport; something on Active Transport, walking, cycling and of course public transport. These are all good things to advocate and support.

However, the 2008 Annual Plan shows little regard for change. Transport is almost always mentioned in the context of roading and maintaining the status quo. Public transport is mentioned three times in the entire document and cycling and walking even less. The focus, when coupled with future development and growth, is always on "business as usual" thinking.

Public transport remains an embarrassing problem for Waipa. A bus service that hardly anyone wants to use, providing a service to barely anyone. Cambridge residents working in Hamilton get one chance to leave for home at 5.15pm . That's it. Elsewhere in the district public transport is either nonexistent or similarly run. School bus services are priced at levels that encourage the use of cars. A family with four children are confronted with a $400 cost each term to use a bus.

As I offered my insights to council I saw an audience that was neither switched on to the risks of climate change nor receptive to ideas that they have a responsibility to advocate to facilitate a change. Perhaps this was my presentation; perhaps it was because they all knew they had their plan just around the corner.

Last week that plan may have been revealed in a project designed to futureproof the region. It seems that the solution to global warming and transport pollution is to think big. What better way than for Waipa to club together with Hamilton and Waikato local authorities and include Transit and Land Transport NZ as major partners. This almost guarantees the outcome. Calling the project FutureProof seems a good choice in the face of all the evidence that that they are playing a game of roading development catch-up. As Martin Gallagher is reported to have said: it should have happened 10 years ago.

Really? Exactly how will this reduce traffic and our use of motorcars? I may have got it completely wrong. I'd love Waipa District Council to tell me what they actually are doing reduce traffic and green house gas emissions?

Preferably before we reach the 2C rise predicted due to global warming.

Rob Love lives in Cambridge and is a co-founder of the movement advocating Active Transport initiatives at the community level. An educator and businessman, he became a lifelong environmentalist after living through an eight-hour traffic jam in Auckland. His email address is rob@netwhare.com.

If you would like to contribute a column to Eco Issues, email your suggested topic, background and contact details to jeff.neems@waikatotimes.co.nz.

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