Revealed: Auckland Transport blows $121,000 on footpath hopscotch and sandwich boards

Auckland Transport has spent $121,000 pointing out pedestrian shortcuts through the central city, the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance can reveal.

$29,000 was spent pasting images of feet on footpaths, and $72,000 was spent on 'activations and promotions' which involved paying people in juvenile costumes to dance around sandwich boards and play hopscotch.

Cut-throughs like St Kevin's arcade and Vulcan Lane are hardly hidden secrets that need flashy promotional videos. While pedestrians and motorists alike struggle to navigate a sea of orange road cones, the Council is busy patting itself on the back for the city's decades-old laneways.

This is part of a continued pattern of Auckland Council wasting money on frivolous aesthetic experiments on roads and footpaths. Aucklanders wondering where their ever-increasing rate bills go deserve real improvement of services, not indulgent promotion campaigns.