Two stories have recently caught my attention for the appalling treatment of people using roads who are not in cars.
The first was a few days ago from the local paper that covers the Hibiscus Coast and details the issues with a relatively new intersection that people keep running red lights at. It’s so bad parents are making kids waive silly flags as they cross the road.
It is only a matter of time before a child is killed at a dangerous Auckland intersection where up to 14 drivers a morning run red lights, concerned parents say.
There are four schools and a preschool near the four-way intersection at Millwater Parkway and Bankside Road, and near misses are a daily occurrence, the mums and dads say.
Silverdale School parents are so worried they have been doing surveys of the intersection, counting up to 14 red light runners a morning.
The group mans the site each school day for 30 minutes wearing high-visibility vests and handing out orange flags to children crossing the road in an effort to keep them safe.
The situation came to a head in the week before the school holidays when two cars crashed in the middle of the intersection, coordinator Penny Howard says.
“It was at 8.20 am when one car obviously ran a red and hit an oncoming car. Shrapnel was sent flying across the road. Thankfully a pedestrian wasn’t hit by it.”
Yes there are bad drivers out there but 14 red light runners a morning it suggests that perhaps there’s also a design issue with the intersection and surrounding area. I suspect one of the issues is the large empty fields on two of the corners plus having the school effectively set back behind a row of trees and a large berm are contributing to giving drivers visual cues that this is an area they can travel faster. I’d be interested to know from readers what options they think would help make the area safer and more kid friendly.
On a related note, why the hell are we still allowing roads like this to be built without dedicated cycling facilities. It wouldn’t have taken much to add them when the road was being constructed but now it’s likely to be an expensive and difficult retrofit job.
The second example is from Hamilton where the NZTA yesterday announced plans to spend $2 million upgrading the intersection of SH1 and SH26. Despite the state highway designations the area is thoroughly in a residential area with houses, shops and a school all nearby.
The Hillcrest roundabout will be replaced with a new, larger roundabout which will have three entry lanes for city bound State Highway 1 traffic and a slip lane for vehicles heading onto State Highway 26 (Morrinsville Road).
The Transport Agency’s Waikato Highways Manager, Kaye Clark says the new roundabout will improve safety and help to ease congestion at the intersection.
“The Hillcrest roundabout is the city’s busiest with 37,000 vehicles using it every day,” she says.
“At peak times it is a major pinch point which we know causes a lot of frustration for people travelling through.
“The new, larger roundabout will make a difference to traffic flow.”
Mrs Clark says the Transport Agency investigated all possible improvements for the intersection, including traffic lights.
“We looked at installing traffic lights with a pedestrian crossing however our modelling showed this would have added to the congestion issues and caused more delays,” she says.
“More lanes would have been required to get traffic through as well as the larger roundabout will and having a signalised pedestrian crossing on a section of SH1 with such a heavy traffic flow would have caused significantly more congestion.
“We are confident that expanding the roundabout is the most balanced and effective solution possible here.”
As part of the project the Transport Agency plans to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists by building new paths and a new pedestrian crossing on SH26, so people can cross the road safely.
“With high traffic areas like this pedestrians and cyclists are safer on separated facilities,” Ms Clark says.
“We plan to build new paths on both sides of the entrance to the shopping centre and a new pedestrian crossing on SH26 (Morrinsville Road). The pedestrian crossing will have a raised refuge, so pedestrian can safely cross one lane and wait in the middle of the road before crossing the next lane.
“An existing underpass that takes pedestrians under SH1 will remain in place and a cycle lane will be formed from SH1 into SH26 giving both pedestrians and cyclists safe options to get around.”
Despite what they say it’s pretty clear the only thing the NZTA engineers cared about was the movement of cars and the intersection gives a giant middle finger to anyone not in a car. On the SH26 branch pedestrians have to either cross multiple lanes of traffic to reach the ‘refuge’. That’s may be fine for many people but what about those who can’t run such as the elderly or those with disabilities and would the designers let their children cross there? On the southern side of the SH1 branch the option is a likely dingy underpass that most people will probably ignore – like they clearly do now giving the number of desire lines through the planted median that are visible.
Below is an example of one of the existing desire lines through the planted median and angled to just avoid the pedestrian barrier. I expect pedestrians will continue to prefer this more risky crossing than the pedestrian underpass a few meters away.
To make matters traffic volumes through this intersection will likely drop in the near future as early next year the NZTA expect work to start on the Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway which will see SH1 diverted to the east of Hamilton and away from this intersection. That is expected to be completed in 2019 and is shown below (and even by 2041 is expected to have remarkably low traffic volumes.
What they’re proposing is obscene in an urban environment and will almost certainly have to be redone again in a few years time into a form that isn’t so hostile to people.
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In that Silverdale case the obvious and inexpensive solution is four stop signs with decent speed management humps. There’s no way traffic should be permitted to fly past schools with such scant regard for the safety of children.
And in general, the speed limit should be 30kph anywhere near a school or playground.
the bigger problem with the silverdale roundabout is the outgoing / incoming traffic at peak times, exacerbated by the Hamilton ring road that dumps traffic a bit further back in Hamilton at Cambridge road or at some time in the future Cobham drive.
The ring road traffic has increases the traffic volume on some of the nearby streets, not that any authority seems to have noticed going on their inaction.
Slowing the traffic at the roundabout will simply make that traffic problem worse.
14 red light runners a morning is nothing compared with most Auckland intersections!
The solution is obvious. Install red light camera’s and fine the offenders. Unfortunately we have ridiculously low fines for this sort of thing but the receipt of a fine should be enough to regulate most drivers behaviour.
I will also point out that red light running occurs in Auckland not due to the reasons stated but because of the ridiculous roading system we have that stops traffic at every available opportunity, causing infuriation amongst drivers who wouldn’t need to stop if the person designing our roads had half a brain. The default position at intersections should be a roundabout with traffic lights only required if convincing reasoning can be provided i.e 2-lane road meets 2-lane road.
If we kept traffic moving gaps would naturally form allowing other road users to cross safely without needing to stop traffic to do so. Sadly such vision is absent in Auckland and we suffer unnecessary congestion because of it.
“The default position at intersections should be a roundabout”
Hey, its the old “If we only gave drivers what they want, it would all be sweet” argument.
Lets give a cheer [and ignore the pedestrians waiting at the road edge]!
Agreed. Roundabouts are terrible for pedestrians.
They are not always good for driver’s either. When the flow is unevenly balanced, then drivers in the less favoured directions cannot get through the intersection. (Roundabouts consisting of multiple roundabouts is an attempt to avoid that problem.) They are also seem to be more prone to people queueing within the intersection in times of heavy traffic, therefore blocking otherwise clear paths; though I am not sure if that is simply anecdotal.
Roundabouts are not terrible for pedestrians. It’s only they way that we implement them that is terrible. We could have dutch style roundabouts that are good for cyclists and pedestrains, and keep the cars flowing freely. win-win-win.
http://uksafercycling.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/dutch-style-roundabouts.html
My God, that’s brilliant. To prevent red-light running, just get rid of red lights! And then the traffic engineering pixies will sprinkle magic safety dust on all the new roundabouts, and children everywhere will cross in peace and harmony.
“If we kept traffic moving gaps would naturally form allowing other road users to cross safely…”
Please explain. Allowing a constant stream of cars to flow through would seem to reduce the odds of allowing safe crossings, not increase it.
Also, this is outside a goddamn school. Children are not always good at judging when it is safe to cross a moving stream of traffic.
So now we have to adjust our driving because others are poor judges?
Replace “driving” with any verb. Not my problem if other people make mistakes. Slippery slope argument that leads to zero risk
Yes you certainly should. I actually find your comment quite disgusting and appalling, so in your opinion children are fair game? If they’re on the road they deserve to be killed basically in your opinion. Heaven forbid you have to slow down and take 1 min longer to get somewhere such that other people can use what is a public resource without fearing for their lives.
Driving isn’t some right, and it isn’t a right to barrel down a road hitting anyone who strays in your righteous path. It’s this sort of attitude, ‘the road belongs to me and my car’ that makes NZ so dangerous, and why IMO fines need to be massively higher and backed up with instant licence loss if you go through a red light and prison time if you kill anyone.
Nope.
You don’t have to allow for the stupidity or incompetence of any other person anywhere. After all, you obviously never make any sort of mistake.
Of course, by NOT doing so, I will feel free to tell you to F%%K OFF when you want ACC to cover the rehabilitation for the injuries you suffer that would have been avoided if you had bothered to consider for a second that other people are fallible.
Colin Craig’s attempt to re-legalise corporal punishment for children didn’t go far enough! We need to discipline kids by hitting them with large, fast-moving steel objects!
I think the person designing our intersections would need to have half a brain (or less) to take your advice.
Agree with the Real Mathew. Roundabouts work better than lights, always ensuring flow.
Flow! Floooooooooow!
The flow of precious vehicular fluids!
By Darwin, the spice must flow!
Thank you for the view from the dashboard. I almost forgot what an inconvenience it is to have to yield to other road users.
“To make matters traffic volumes through this intersection will likely drop in the near future” I think you missed a word here.
Large roundabouts are often horrendous for pedestrians. The Panmure roundtable is a good example. So is the Sunset Rd / Target Rd / Caribbean Dr roundtable. They are busy. Traffic is often queued up. Sight lines for drivers to see pedestrians are poor.
That Silverdale intersection in the photo now has a traffic light. I was working in the building that appears to be under construction. It is now complete. Running a traffic light there would be stupid. You can’t see what’s coming around the now-completed commercial building. The road from the left is down a steepish incline.
They’re all horrendous. Even the Sylvia Park one is hard to get across.
Horrendous in NZ at least because they never bother with any pedestrian priority, roundabouts in places like Switzerland are fine as all legs have zebra crossings. The NZ obsession with pedestrian refuges and a refusal to put zebras is quite bizarre IMO.
Silverdale is purely a lack of policing, and the relatively low fine for such a dangerous offence. Meadowbank School used to have a patrolled crossing on Remuera Road, and even 30 years ago, drivers would regularly go through the stop signs. They would ring the police, and an officer would wait just after the crossing and chase any offender. 5 days of policing used to solve the problem for 2-3 months.
This begs for quantification! Let’s do the maths!
5 days of policing equates to perhaps 60 hours of police time (assuming that they stick around from 7am to 7pm to catch the morning and evening commutes).
According to one source (https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/thecostofsuicidetosociety.pdf), in 2004 the cost of police time was equal to $79/hour. Vehicle costs are probably additional – let’s assume that they’re equal to 50% the cost of police time (or $40). Let’s also assume that wages have gone up by about 25% since 2004. So the cost of one police officer and their car is about $150/hour.
This means that 5 days at the intersection will cost the police $9,000. If they have to do that four times a year (i.e. once every 3 months) to provide an ongoing deterrent, that single intersection will cost $36,000 per annum in police resources.
At this point, I seems like it could be more efficient to spend money to redo the intersection.
Same flaw as the “P-3 Orions cost xx$ per hour so your rescue costs $yy”
Only work if you were willing to assume police time was entirely liquid and that staff numbers scaled up/down with demand
And even if you were right, $36k is nothing. Engineering would cost a lot more.
Actually, you are saying he’s placed a MINIMUM cost on it.
But it is actually a fairly fluid cost.
5 days = 1 working week.
So that’s oh say 12 different schools per year in rotation every 3 months for 1/4 of the officers day.
Then they go do whatever you want an officer to otherwise do anyway.
Orion’s on the other hand aren’t in use all the time, and have MUCH higher fixed overheads.
$36,000 every year, indefinitely into the future. In present value terms (8% discount rate; 30 year evaluation period in line with Treasury’s guidance), that’s about $440,000.
And yeah, I don’t think your comparison to the Orions is relevant. Police officers, unlike military aircraft, have a lot of other things they could be doing, so time spent watching intersections that could be designed better instead has a pretty linear cost.
The cops aren’t going to be there all day. A couple of hours a day at that intersection, for five days, should do the trick.
School Patrols only operate for 1 Hour in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon. There were almost no problems in the afternoon, so time cost was about 5 hours per week. How else to you stop people breaking the law and endangering children. This was before the advent of cell phones and so the reasons were things like shaving, putting on makeup.
I think one of the questions we need to ask in a situation like this is why to we put up with such poor driver behaviour? Not only are the drivers blindly ignoring basic road safety but even after having been ‘re-educated’ 3 months down the track they are back to their old habits. Running red lights and stop signs should be completely unacceptable behaviour. Stop signs aren’t erected because we think they look pretty.
We all know how good NZTA are at designing roads in urban environments. Just look at Stanley Street! It’s obvious the number one goal was to move trucks between the motorway and the port and vv. All other users were secondary (with pedestrians and cyclists even lower down the list).
that Hamilton roundabout is horrendous. What a terrible design for pedestrians and cyclists. And there’s even a flaming school right there as well. This sort of stuff makes me very angry.
So much for the traffic and transport profession getting its shit together.
Stu, you raise an interesting point. However, we don’t quite exactly know what their brief was, or if they were told to create something original. Personally, I would have preferred traffic lights as it appears it might be able to have a smaller footprint, and also, the potential to have two turnings lanes onto sh26
As for that Silverdale intersection, Police should just camp out there for a week. Problem solved (for about three to six months)
This is why engineers need something like a Hippocratic oath so that regardless of the brief they design for the best outcomes for everyone
it doesn’t matter what their brief was – no transport/traffic professional should put their name to designs like this. It’s like something out of an AustRoads horror movie.
And Matt – engineers do have a form of the hippocratic oath; you can read it here: http://www.ipenz.org.nz/ipenz/about_us/ipeNZ_code_of_ethics.cfm
However: There is no organisation holding engineers to account in situations where they don’t comply with ethics. In my opinion, the above intersection design is *borderline* negligence. Of course just my opinion, but I’d like to see it tested more formally and hear some wider professional views on whether we think this sort of intersection is appropriate in this kind of urban area.
Well, IPENZ is supposed to do that. But in the same sense, neither is there anyone outside their own professional organisations holding doctors to account for malpractice (unless of course you are shown to be *criminally* neglient, and I suspect that would apply to engineers too).
I consider the problem is that the engineers in this case, had they proposed a signal or a different (more people-friendly) roundabout would have been told (by the next level of management) that “this wasn’t what we wanted, thanks for trying, why are you still pushing this, no we still don’t want it, thanks, we will go to the next consultant (if not for this project then the next one, because we now know you are difficult, mate)”.
Our underlying policies still value flow over everything, including safety. We still talk about “balancing all modes” when we mean “don’t slow down cars”. This goes right to the top of our government, and our funding policies. Engineers are part of that, but quite a few of them KNOW how to do better. But they aren’t allowed to. I have hit this in my own career so often. You make all sorts of improvement suggestions, and then find them being rejected almost every time.
Thanks Darius – keep trying would be my suggestion, despite the set-backs.
Direct from the IPENZ practice note on the practice note relating to ethical obligations:
Public safety – giving priority to the safety and well-being of
the community and having regard to this principle in assessing
obligations to clients, employers and colleagues. This
requires you to advocate to clients and employers, and devote
adequate resources to ensure safety in use.
But your primary obligation as a professional is to do what an informed client wants. NZTA make the decisions on what they want to build not their consultants. If NZTA decide to build a Godawful roundabout where a set of traffic signals are really needed then there isn’t anything their consultants and contractors can do about it. After all they are the road controlling authority. All anyone can do is point out the pros and cons.
Actually no, your primary obligation isn’t to your Client. The Code of Ethics makes it quite clear that other tenets such as public safety, obeying the law, etc trump whatever your Client wants. Also, you’re meant to be acting in the Client’s best interests and sometimes what the Client thinks they want is not the best solution. But it takes a good engineer to point this out to the Client rather than just “following instructions”
That roundabout has been a dog for years. I used to fear driving through there in my little car, coming from SH 26 the northbound traffic on SH 1 wouldnt stop unless you were in a truck.
The exit from the shopping centre should never have been there, I used to sound my horn as I left so that soundbound traffic didnt cut me off.
The underpasses are like all underpasses and avoided by all.
All finally as someone else has pointed out there is a school trapped between that roundabout and the cambridge road roundabout.
That entire area is unsafe for anyone not in a car travelling along SH 1
I’m not a fan of large roundabouts in urban areas for busy arterial routes.
That intersection should be redesigned with traffic lights and if there are tailbacks at busy times then tough luck. Sometimes as a driver you just have to suck it up.
Roundabouts should only be used on quieter intersections in urban settings and large roundabouts for arterial roads either outside urban settings or on road reservations devoid of pedestrian access.
The Silverdale intersection could be improved with speed hums at the intersection (not 30kph speed bumps but 50kph speed humps).The 4-5 metre wide humps are placed where the stopline and pedestrian crossings are. A very common technique in the Netherlands.
People run red lights when they know they will get away with it. It is common where signals go in prior to much development and traffic flows are still low. The traffic that is there will often travel too fast. It will probably be the same people every morning and enforcement can make a big difference- a good probability of a fine can make up for the apparent low probability of a crash. I don’t know the intersection and don’t know if there is a specific design issue there. The other option is to take number plates and dob people in. You don’t actually have to do that but just get some publicity in a local paper saying that you are can make a big difference to behaviour.
Why do we not put traffic lights on our roundabouts like they do in the UK? It allows safer pedestrian crossing and it allows the roundabout to run more efficiently in peak traffic (allows a flow of cars instead of one at a time).
Awesome idea. Maybe we should do that for the Silverdale junction. The traffic lights could turn on before and after school. Outside of these times, the roundabout could work normally (lights off).
There are a couple of roundabouts with traffic lights in Wellington, although they seem to be shit for all users.
With the advent of LED lights we should be able to replace the current form of traffic lights with something much more noticeable. Maybe the entrance to the intersection could be light up red/yellow/green on the road surface? Or make the current traffic light posts light up as well as the traffic light. Plenty of options that could be explored.
If drivers can’t see red lights, they should not be on the road! Same goes for cyclists too
Cameras at every traffic signal i say, if u want to run a red light – expect a fine.
Feel like going and policing that intersection myself! Anyone got a spare set of tyre spikes?
What about hedges on the two empty corners?
It seems to me that taffic engineers unthinkingly apply AUSTROADS standards, which in themselves give little regard to pedestrians, cyclists or place. How else can you explain the strategies making all the right noises and then still ending up with car dominated designs on the ground? There is a complete disconnect there.
What is infuriating is that they then write about how it will improve things for pedestrians and cyclists, they realise that’s what’s needed and what people want but actually design and build the complete opposite.
The existing SH1/SH26 roundabout in Hamilton has a decorative garden in it whose effect is to force cyclists using the cycle lane on SH1/Cambridge Road either out into the stream of cars or onto the footpath. (Cycling on the footpath along Cambridge Road is very common.) The extension of the cycle lane across the intersection is actually an improvement, provided you’re trying to go from Cambridge Road onto SH26/Morrinsville Road. Not so much for any other route.
But yes, the design which was presented to local residents included new pedestrian crossings of Morrinsville Road which look to have been dropped completely in favour of more space for cars.
And yes, the underpass is seriously dingy, but I and a lot of others use it frequently anyway. I’m off to use it now, in fact …
20 km/hr pass busses, 30-20 km/hr past school yes. Esp at this round about section into Hamilton. Yes it is a very busy section of road. I wounld’nt like going through an under-pass on my bicycle in fear of the unkown. With regard to Dutch design. Please study and implement factors pertaining too firstly, pedestrian safety, secondly Bicyclists safety and the rest….
As Hamilton is growing so too for efficient movement of Bicycling transportation. Create/Design roundabouts in favor for the Bicyclist, Pedestrian.
Here is a link of cyclists use this roundabout
http://www.hbn.co.nz/roundabouts.html
Oh no. You’ve got to be kidding me! Vehicular cycling. How to keep a 1%% mode share. Forever.
I would not be surprised when a lot of the people running reds are actually parents/teachers/school principals. When the school zone warnings came in and were enforced, many of the criminals caught were that group of people.
I think that it would be nice if we had more upright cyclists as well. I think that they are more inclined to generate tolerance in the motoring fraternity who seem to have a lesser threshold of understanding of the Lycra Clad low handle barred cyclist.