40 comments

  1. Pedestrians are 2nd CLASS CITIZENS.

    How do I justify this:

    Lack of regular pedestrian crossings on most roads. It is more important to get vehicles travelling between points and any pedestrian amenity (or safety) interferes with this.
    Lack of regular council/police enforcement or even education of vehicles driving on, blocking, or parking on footpaths – often forcing pedestrians into the stream of traffic in order to navigate said obstruction.
    My favourite are the road works saying pedestrians please use other side while they do things to the street/services – problem is no pedestrian crossing to safely get across, sometimes no footpath on other side, and sometimes the work is happening on both sides with 2 signs saying the same thing!!! How often is the foot path closed with no traffic management plan in place – like conned of sections of the road space for pedestrians.
    Even when on footpaths pedestrians often take their lives in their hands when crossing a driveway! This happens at private residents as much as at petrol stations and supermarkets!

    See 2nd class citizens!

  2. Yeah I for one am sick of people trying to drive through me or block me on a FOOTpath, the roadcode says peds have the right of way on footpaths/driveways/non-public roadway (which btw INCLUDES carparks as they are not public roadways). I even get people almost hitting me at pedestrian zebra crossings frequently in the city!! People in cars are already mostly getting to their destination quicker (assuming same distance) then those on foot, I am sure they can afford a few extra minutes waiting for people to cross.

    Police seem more interested in giving speed tickets then protecting pedestrians! It has nothing to do with peoples safety its just about the fun factor for them and how much money they can make.

    Also we need more crossings, especially near bus stops, the number of times ive been stuck on the other side of the road whilst constant traffic goes past causing me to miss my bus on the other side of the road is ridiculous (what if it was only every 2 hours? or last bus in the evening? Not cool).

    1. I have even had police try to run me over on the foot path, and forcing me to stop so they can drive over it (lights not on). If the police can’t manage this, how can we expect anyone else to do so.

    1. When our planners and politicians best idea for cycling is shared paths, what do you expect? The best way to get two groups that want something from you out of your hair is to encourage them to fight each other, and act like there’s no space for them except to all be pushed into a narrow space at the fringe.

    2. This something I’ve been thinking about on the Northwestern cycle way. Cycle traffic is picking up all the time on the route. Is it still really safe to allow it to be dual use for pedestrians and cyclists?

      1. Cyclists become pedestrians whenever they dismount, for whatever reason, therefore a cycleway is also pedestrian access. Footpaths, however, are for pedestrians and not for cyclists riding their mounts. Alas the difference seems elude many cyclists.

        1. There is no reason that cyclists, riding safely and at same speed as pedestrians, should not be able to ride on the footpaths.

        2. That is a nice sentiment but I have never seen a cyclist who uses the footpath travelling at the same speed as a pedestrian. If they were, they may as well dismount and walk their bike. As far as I am aware that is the law, if cyclists use the footpath, they have to walk their bikes. I posted a comment below on my experience as a pedestrian and footpath cyclists.

          From the road code:

          “Don’t ride your bicycle on a footpath unless you are delivering newspapers, mail or leaflets, or there is a sign indicating it is a shared pedestrian and cycle path.”

        3. But that is not written in stone. In some states of Australia cyclists are allowed to ride on the footpath in some situations. It has been changed in many parts of Devonport where white lines designate shared paths – though many pedestrians don’t realise that and give you dirty looks for cycling on them.

          We should have a speed limit of 20km/h in shared areas. That will put off the racing lycra boys who are the ones causing conflict in shared areas. You might say that people cycling will ignore that but that is the same as cars in restricted speed zones. How many people drive down Fort Street at 10km/h or Ponsonby Road at 40km/h (at least when the congestion doesn’t force it anyway). It will pout the blame on them when it happens.

          As with cars, speed is the issue. A person cycling at 20km/h can stop on a dime as can a car at 30km/h. Speed is a factor in 100% of crashes so we should control that.

        4. Oi, don’t make this a “lycra” boys thing – I happen to race competitively, yet I treat pedestrians with the upmost respect as do most of the people I ride with (there is one exception who could be better – I give him plenty of crap about it). The two times I’ve had issues either as a pedestrian or a cyclist on shared paths have been morons in street clothes on Bike Shaped Objects not only cutting me up when I’m cruising with the g/f, but also pedestrians. Last time I used the Tamaki Dr shared path, I actually stopped and apologised to a couple after a moron’s complete disregard for both them and us, nearly forcing them out on to the road as he went past at 30k an hour.

          Basically, something like the Nor-Western path I’ve got no problem with doing pretty high speeds on it (50+ in places) when I’ve got the sight lines – however if I see any pedestrians, I slow right down and treat them how I’d like to be treated when a car passes me – fairly slowly and with plenty of space. As for the Tamaki Dr shared path – if you’re doing anything over 20k an hour, use the damn road, or slow down. It’s pretty simple really.

  3. The image plays to the anti-car mob that congregates on this website from time to time and bares little resemblance to the truth.

    We are creating a highly inefficient roading system full of obstructions and blockages that create unnecessary congestion. The night the traffic flowed best in Auckland was the night the power went out and all the traffic lights went out. To my knowledge no pedestrians were hit that night and everyone got to their destination in a timely fashion.

    We need to be ripping out lights for pedestrians and replacing them with safety zones in the middle of the road so pedestrians can cross one side of the road at a time. We need to be thinking multi-modal efficiency, not impacting one mode for the benefit of another. That’s not progress.

    Images like this only seek to feed the mob and build hysteria against vehicle users which is in no way helpful for the quest to establish multi-mode efficiency.

    1. Traffic flowed smoothly because in many of the suburbs affected, people’s cars were stuck in their garages or behind gates, and they couldn’t get them open because of the lack of electricity.
      The idea of safety zones is silly; there is not the width on many roads to provide such a thing. If anything, carridgewaya should be narrowed to slow traffic and reduce the width pedestrians have to cross.
      It’s not about being anti-car, but pro-pedestrian. Essentially everyone (save those who physically can’t) walks at sometime. Not everyone can or wants to drive.

    2. You talk about “hysteria” and you use words like “mob”. So I guess you know about hysteria.
      “The night the traffic flowed best”?? Is this just something you have dreamed up out of thin air or do you have any evidence?
      Speaking of evidence: “To my knowledge no pedestrians were hit that night and everyone got to their destination in a timely fashion.” What sort of knowledge is that? Is that the same knowledge that doesn’t know the difference between “bear” and “bare”? Hint: you got it wrong.
      You don’t KNOW that any pedestrains were not hit – you just state it as a fact although you have done zero research to confirm it. Maybe 20 pedestrains were hit? But you haven’t bothered to find out.
      That knee of yours must be really sore by now with all that jerking.

    3. “We need to be ripping out lights for pedestrians…”

      Right, so you think that people who are walking should get out of the way of people who are in cars. That’s incredibly unsafe, as it will require people to walk into or through oncoming traffic.

      “We need to be thinking multi-modal efficiency, not impacting one mode for the benefit of another.”

      Either you have just decided that you disagree with your previous sentence, or you have defined “multi-modal efficiency” as “cars first!”

    4. “We need to be thinking multi-modal efficiency, not impacting one mode for the benefit of another.” – well I agree. But that is exactly what is happening. One mode (private car) is being favoured massively over active modes and public transport.

      And not just when they are moving either. Even a parked car has a higher priority than a PT user or active mode user actually making an economically productive trip. Even on major arterials which should be used for nothing but moving people. http://caa.org.nz/auckland-transport/parking-aucklands-sacred-cow/

      The “war on cars” is just some hyperbole the anti-PT/active mode brigade come up with to discuss the tiny changes that will take some small part of the massive subsidies and privilege given to people in cars. The wonderful Rob Ford in Toronto loved that term, in between smoking crack.

      No-one is suggesting the city could function without cars – lots of pro-car people suggesting the city would function better without PT or cycling. It is only about priorities and the most efficient way of moving large groups of people in the same direction – i.e. not one person per vehicle.

    5. “Anti-car mob” – comedy gold.

      That will teach them for trying to help change Auckland into a more multi-modal city…

    1. One plank missing and the other is only down twenty seconds at a time.

      “Multi modal efficiency” where we rip out the pedestrian infrastructure and make them cower in the median so cars can go faster? Seriously? You can’t have your cake and eat it to, we can have a city that prioritizes cars, or one that prioritizes people. Trying to prioritize everything is quixotic.

        1. Statistically, that is a very safe treatment. Far safer than a zebra crossing. At least for able-bodied pedestrians.

        2. Ari you mean drivers just don’t stop at ped crossings? Rather proves the point of the post doesn’t it? And evidence that something is drastically wrong with the balance of entitlement generally afforded to drivers on streets and roads that they apparently ‘do see’ ped crossings or pedestrians.

        3. Nick, probably not. People just jump the fences when drivers aren’t expecting it and cyclists get squashed against them. So no, fences are a waste of money in terms of pedestrian safety unless it’s a motorway or something. You see it all the time on Manukau Station Rd outside the courts building.

          Patrick, there are two issues, volume of pedestrians and speed of the vehicles. Long ago the powers that be decided that you had to have enough pedestrians to warrant a zebra or other such treatment. The reason being that if there were few pedestrians, local drivers would not be expecting anything to cross and speed through the area. The drivers try to stop, but are often travelling too fast.

          There is a move away from the pedestrian number based warrants and looking more at the speeds on the road. If you can bring the speeds down, then you can probably put a zebra in safely. You probably could get away with a raised table courtesy crossing to bring the speeds down and allow pedestrians to cross. But bumps cause so much trouble for buses. The pedestrians have right of way on the zebra, but they also have a responsibility to make sure that it is safe to cross and that oncoming traffic has actually seen them. You cannot simply disregard personal responsibility and blame drivers when a pedestrian just walks out into the middle of the street even if we changed the law to give pedestrians priority over cars on the roads.

        4. Indeed but you sure can blame road design for encouraging inappropriate speed and the assumption by drivers that they only need to be aware of other vehicles and no other road users…: build it like a speedway and it’ll be used like one. Agree both the raised beds are very useful at instructing drivers of the presence of other road users and that they are bad for buses. Obvious solution is to have buslanes that are without the level change and general traffic lanes with them…. but then you’d have to actually have buslanes in the first place… welcome to Auckland; a place for cars.

        5. “If you can bring the speeds down, then you can probably put a zebra in safely.” – But that is a complete chicken and the egg situation because AT will never put in place anything to bring speeds down.

          It is like when we asked the Police about 30km/h zones in Devonport (which they have opposed in the past).

          The Police said sure, great idea. Asa long as the cars are already driving at that speed (then why f%&k would we need the zone), you can show there have been safety issues for pedestrians (often there aren’t because the horrible speed way like street environment means no-one walks or cycles anyway) and the local residents don’t object (they always object if it will increase their travel time by more than 10secs or they juts hate change).

          Oh and the Police won’t support speed bumps because residents don’t like them as motorists just accelerate between bumps.

          Other than that the Police are really on board. To translate from political BS to English – No, the Police will not support 30km/h zones.

        6. If zebra crossings are unsafe, how about instant change traffic light controlled pedestrian crossings like they have in Vancouver for pedestrians, and for cyclists along the main cycle routes.

          You touch the button and the light turns orange, 3 seconds later it’s red and safe to cross.

        7. 2 things.

          Even refuges are inappropriate on multi lane roads. Multilane roads should be a) signalised or b) another form of bypass – bridge etc.

          Yes, pedestrians need to be aware of vehicles but seriously, it’s not like they are (or should not be at least) obscured or just appear out of thin air on the zebra. Motorists also need to be aware of what’s happening on the footpaths. At least, that’s what was taught in the road code when i sat my licence 29 years ago.

        8. There’s a bunch of victim blaming in this thread.

          It’s like saying a girl “deserved to be raped.”

          Let me explain very simply. Pedestrians have a right of way on zebra crossings. They have the right to walk out at any time, whenever they want. It wouldn’t be pragmatically smart (discretion and valour), but it’s their right. If a car hits them, that car is 100% at fault. Whether the pedestrian walked, ran, skipped, or hopped across that zebra crossing. The right is the pedestrian.

        9. Not true, pedestrians are obliged not to step onto the crossing if a driver cannot stop in time. That would clearly cover running out, and possibly skipping and hoping.

        10. Nick, the Road Transport Amendment Act 2009 – http://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Documents/Motor-Vehicle-Crashes-2012/Motor-Vehicle-Crashes-2012-Legislation.pdf – “drivers are required to give way to pedestrians who are obviously waiting to cross at a pedestrian crossing” – changed all that. I believe it was a response to children doing just that – running out at a crossing.

          I interpret “obviously” to mean being at or near a crossing. So when driving and I see a pedestrian nearing a crossing I do actually slow right down, in anticipation of them possibly using this crossing, and being prepared to stop rapidly. This ensures cars behind me also have plenty of warning in case they are violating the following to close rules 🙂

  4. Delayed-change pedestrian-crossing signals are symptomatic of the “War” that New Zealand has historically waged on its Pedestrians. In the UK, or at least when I was last there, a pedestrian presses the Cross button and the “stop traffic” sequence begins immediately. After the pedestrian phase has completed, THEN a time-delay operates to prevent a second pedestrian phase recurring during a predetermined wait.

    In New Zealand, the time-delay kicks-in BEFORE the pedestrian phase initiates, such that pressing the button guarantees a significant pedestrian-wait before anything happens. What this means in the real world of real people, is that pedestrians get tired of waiting (esp. in the wind and rain) and grab the first opportunity to cross that the traffic permits. Then of course the traffic-stop sequence activates with likely nobody still needing to cross. What kind of idiot system is thist? Unfortunately typical of ‘car-prioritised’ AoteaRoada.

    Even more idiotic is the permitting of turning traffic at signallised intersections to drive through the pedestrian phase. In the UK, a “pedestrian cross” indication means no conflicting traffic-movements are permitted. A most obvious and commonsense principle of safety-signalling, one would have thought. But in Never-impede-the-motorist-Zealand, turning-traffic is given a green-light-to-go across a pedestrian phase also displaying a green-light-to-go. An absolute No-No in countries serious about safety! The best “protection” that this system gives the NZ pedestrian is an occasional, inconspicuous little sign advising “Drivers Give Way to Peds”.

    Anyone looking for evidence of the “war on pedestrians” in NZ – here it is!

    1. I called the DCC transport planners about this.. it took about 15 minutes just to explain that pedestrians could have the right of way without obstructing traffic flow because the total traffic stop time is no different…

    2. Depends. The UK uses a different system, have lots of staggered pedestrian crossings, tend to have a lot more banned vehicle movements and thus run much shorter phases. So you can’t compare them with us. Apples and oranges. In Auckland it is standard to hold left turn vehicles back for several seconds or more. I don’t think CHCH does this, not sure about Wellington.

      Making pedestrians wait is no different to making vehicles on side roads wait. The long delays tend to result from coordinating the traffic lights along the main road. The dominant flow of traffic takes priority, whether it is pedestrian or otherwise. Look at Queen St where rightly so, the pedestrians get the lion-share of the time.

      1. Wow, we are so lucky that the traffic engineers have built a perfect system for NZ and we don’t need to listen to any ideas from overseas. That is just fantastic.

        Of course NZ is so “special” and “different” that we have to do things differently from countries that have half our traffic crash deaths. I mean what do those Dutch and Danish people know?

        They don’t even speak English, I heard. And some of them don’t even own cars and have to ride bicycles or use public transport. They must be really poor countries.

        Thank goodness our traffic engineers have worked closely with our politicians to rescue us from that fate.

  5. The right to blame the victim may be what make our pedestrian crossing more dangerous to weaker road users.
    In the Netherlands it is very clear “pedestrians have right of way on the zebra” they are not asked to act as if they need to think this is not a pedestrians right.

    AA UK Pedestrian crossing survey in Europe
    “A special award has to be given to the Netherlands, almost always scoring the best result.”
    “In the Netherlands, for instance, the pedestrian is not specifically asked to pay attention before using a pedestrian crossing”
    “the Netherlands give no indications related to the pedestrian’s behaviour when he intends to cross the road”
    http://www.theaa.com/public_affairs/reports/aa-pedestrian-crossings-survey-in-europe.pdf

  6. Another point concerning pedestrians and encouraging walking is the walking environment on foot paths next to roads. As cars travel by they are noisy (even the tyres alone), smelly (particularly diesel buses), visually distressing (fast moving objects create a busy not relaxing place to be), and windy (as they move past they generate wakes which buffet pedestrians. All this means people get in their car to drive somewhere there are not cars to go for a walk…

  7. I have been living in Auckland for the past two years from previously living in Wellington. I was a cyclist then but since living here, I haven’t been able to afford a bike and have been walking and busing to and from work everyday in Central Auckland.

    I can understand that it is dangerous on the roads here and that is why many cyclists use the footpaths as default cycle lanes. What I am constantly battling with everyday is that they are cycling at speed, weaving through pedestrians. I have been hit by cyclists and verbally abused by them. I know this isn’t the case for all cyclists but it is something I face everyday here.

    Another worrying trend is cyclists going through pedestrian crossings at major intersections when we have the green man. I see this everyday at the Symonds Street, K’Road, Grafton Bridge intersection. It blows my mind how they can just totally ignore people who are crossing the road. It is bad enough have to deal with cars that blatantly ignore pedestrian crossings.

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