High Street upgrade

About the project

We have transformed High Street into a welcoming destination for pedestrians to reflect the growing and changing community in the city centre. High Street is now safer with better access for its increasing numbers of pedestrians.

Auckland Council was awarded the Placemaking Award in the biannual awards programme run by Living Streets Aotearoa for the transformation of High St. More on this here. 

What’s involved

We collaborated with Heart of the City, High Street businesses and residents to trial ideas to improve pedestrian access, the way rubbish is collected, address traffic congestion, and create better access for the delivery of goods and services. 

Initial surveys of pedestrian activity on High Street suggested there were 14 times as many people using the street on foot as there were in vehicles. Despite this 68 per cent of space was allocated to vehicles and parking.

The High Street pilot replaced on-street parking with temporary footpath extensions that doubled the width of the street’s narrow footpaths. These were installed over a number of nights to minimise disruption to retailers.

High Street is a precursor to other work we will be doing around the city centre as part of our Access for Everyone initiative, which is a bold new strategy to reshape the way our city operates and prioritises street space for pedestrians. 

Dates

We expect to adapt these changes we have made to High Street into more permanent, long-lasting improvements in the next five to ten years. 

Further Information

Read more about Access for Everyone and about the vision for Auckland's city centre in the City Centre Masterplan.

Learn about 'tactical urbanism' on Activate Auckland website.

Delivered by

Auckland Council

• highst@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz