Focus area 7: Develop a sustainable and resilient transport system

To make our transport system more sustainable it needs to:

be more resilient to a broad range of local and global changes
minimise negative impacts on the climate and environment.

Building a resilient transport system delivers a wide range of benefits, such as:

improved public health
better air and water quality
a fairer and more equitable society
longer-term social and economic resilience
a significant contribution to reducing Auckland’s emissions.

Improving the resilience of our transport system in response to potential long or short-term disruption is also crucial. We face several challenges and opportunities in this regard, particularly from a changing climate and biodiversity loss. These include:

disruptions arising from accidents, damage or incidents on the network
short and long-term changing weather patterns with:

extreme weather
increased rainfall intensity
extreme heat events
sea-level rise

shock events like those caused by pandemics, energy, and fuel disruptions
continued social, cultural, political, economic and technological changes.

Decisions must be made in a way that reduces the risk of investments being 'caught out' by such changes which can be rapid and sudden.

How this can be done

Our transport system must:

rapidly decrease emissions by:

reducing the distance people need to travel
encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles and micro-mobility,
prioritising the use of more sustainable modes of transport, such as walking, cycling and public transport

identify parts of the transport network where disruption would have significant and widespread impacts
develop appropriate strategies to improve resilience of our transport network
reduce the harmful pollutants that enter our waterways and atmosphere
reduce the impact of non-permeable surfaces on run-off and the creation of urban heat islands.

To find out more, see Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri: Auckland's Climate Plan and Auckland’s Transport Emissions Reduction Pathway (TERP).