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On 24 May 2009 a grass roots organization arrange for a massing of protesters to demand that the NZ Transit Agency provide a pedestrian/bike lane on the Auckland Harbour Bridge - the bridge that connects the southern and northern halves of Auckland and currently the only way for pedestrians and cyclist to cross the bridge is by ferry. The protest just so happened to be the 50th anniversary of the opening of the bridge and the last time pedestrians could walk over the bridge.
The organiser’s goal was to have the protestors walk across the bridge (closing the outside two lanes of the four north bound lanes). They had attempted to negotiate this with the transit agency and police. The police were willing to assist with the lane closures but the transit agency said “no way”.
On the 24th I believe more protesters showed up than anyone really expected… These protesters were limited to a few hard core trouble makers (and actually it was reported that there was really minimal trouble once the police lines had been broken) with the majority being peaceful protestors and families and individuals interested in experiencing the bridge by foot.
I’d intended to
Size of the crowd
Note the range of people - families, oldies, couples, bikers and etc... attend the protest but I don’t remember if I was awake in time for the march that Sunday morning… how I got these photos I’m unsure. If you recognise anyone in the photos they can be fined $200 for trespass…
It was estimated that there were between 2000-3000 walkers and bikers that assembled at the base of the bridge. The transit agency had hastily erected a fence along the perimeter of the motorway a few days before the protest, with only one narrow access point near the merge location of an onramp.
It was reported that after speeches the protesters moved to this narrow opening where a group of 10 police officers and the local head of Transit - “Wayne” - were stationed. The protest leader requested that Wayne allow the people on the bridge… Wayne took the protestors megaphone and simply said “No”. This went on for a while… and I understand that the crowd may have come up with a few chants that included Wayne’s name…
After 15 minutes of this standoff the lead protester said that while the police could hold this position that could not hold the crowd back if they entered from
the onramp… as there were only a token force of 15 - 20 officers, none of which were equipped with riot gear. The mass moved down the onramp to a location where they could cut through the forest and stormed the ramp… the police were quickly over ran and took a final position where the onramp merges with the motorway. A few brave cyclists and one jogger jumped the onramp rail and entered the freeway just prior to the merge location…. The group of six or so cyclists and one jogger took off up the bridge with a police vehicle in a low speed pursuit.
This is where the transit agency made a mistake. The lanes on the bridge have directional and closed lane signals. They immediately marked the outer two lanes with “x” to signify that they were closed to traffic. With that a shout and cheer went out from the massive crowed “ look they are opening up the bridge” - the families and people further back that did not see the bold cyclists initial sprint thought that it was now ok to cross so they pushed forward. With that the token police force took over and
The sift to the narrow access point
10 or so police and one mad transit boss block the way - Wayne is in yellow. closed all four northbound lanes and the bridge remained closed for just over an hour.
Families, cyclists, individuals, unicyclists, picnickers (yes they had people sit down at the top of the center span and have an apple picnic, protesters for other causes and people who had originally crossed the bridge 50 years before were awarded with a brilliant walk over and back on the bridge.
Like I said there is the threat of a $200 fine.
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Uncle Cliff
non-member comment
Protesting
next thing we hear is that you are involved in a giant public sushi fest made from Japanese tourists in protest of the Japanese slaughtering thousands of NZ Antarctic whales the bicyclists here in Portland protest ride in the buff nude.