Auckland is a car city. They pretty much built it on, around and for the car. While the CBD now has a couple of pedestrian zones, the main means of transport for Aucklanders are their four wheels.

First time you realize that, is when you have to wait for green on any crossing. I seems like an eternity (truth is: same applies to Australia). Once it’s green, run! It’ll be red before you’re halfway over.

While the city had a good network of public transport, they dismantled most of it starting in the 1950s.

Only in 2011 Auckland has actually reached the numbers of the 1950s again. And that with a substantially bigger population. Imagine!

They built an extensive highway system in and around the city. Ripped out their old tram tracks, and threw in a couple of bus lines.

While the highway system might be efficient to get people in and out of the center, into the suburbs and over the harbor, it also rips the city apart, I feel.

The highways hug downtown closely, but are also quite a massive barrier between neighborhoods. I wish they had dug tunnels and put them underground, like they partially did in Brussels.

They did, actually, for example under Victoria Park. However, it got too small for the cars, so they planted another highway above ground, cutting through the park on stilts. The colorful dots on the concrete pillars don’t really save it.

My neighborhood, St. Mary’s Bay, was once connected to the harbor. Until they built that multi-lane highway that leads over the harbor bridge, right on the waterfront, cutting it off from the water.

No way of getting across but one modern footbridge, that drops you off at the waterfront. But its urban links to the water are all destroyed.

The bus system mainly consists of two circular lines, the inner and outer link, that circle the city at intervals.

And there’s a short shuttle running across Queen street, the main connection from the Harbor to K-Road. In addition a big number of busses by other companies run into the suburbs.

Thank God they recently harmonized the system and introduced the AT Hop card, that is now accepted in all the busses, the ferries and the trains into the outskirts. It’s bit difficult to top-up though, if you don’t have a Kiwi credit or bank card.

Unfortunately, time tables don’t mean much to the busses. Even without much traffic, busses might just not turn up, and the next one neither… so you might have actually walked over there.

As for bike lanes, they are pretty non existent, even on the bigger roads. Ok, the traffic isn’t that crazy, and there’s enough space to ride your bike.

On the other side, the hilly topography of the city isn’t really inviting it, either.

Apparently, they will reactivate their trams, like so many cities do, and they are even talking about digging a metro tunnel under the CDB, linking downtown to the Mt. Eden suburb.

But truth be told, they had that idea in the 1920s already.

Ok, I might make it sounds here like Auckland is not a nice city. It is, definitely. The hills, the harbor, the cute little Victorian houses, the tree-lined streets….

It’s a very livable city, and often comes out in the Top 10 of any survey.

And I don’t want to rant about it either. It is just very interesting to see how the different cities I have lived in shortly have dealt with growing individual traffic, and the solutions they have found for it, some good, some bad.

City planner would be an interesting job.