This is a cross post from our friends at Bike Auckland. The original post is here.
Auckland Transport is consulting on an “upgrade” to the Royal Oak roundabout, which sits at the heart of what we in Bike Auckland call the “Bike Bermuda Triangle”: the central isthmus, woefully bereft of bikeways. This roundabout is notoriously hostile for people on bikes and only the bravest amongst us travel through it, whether commuting or just going to the shops.
You’re braver than me. I’ve lived 500m from the Royal Oak roundabout for 20 years and I haven’t ridden on it once. I get off and walk using the pedestrian crossings.
— shaun (@slow_tri_guy) December 12, 2018
Auckland Transport reports that this highly dangerous intersection has had 61 crashes in the last five years (2014-2018): one fatal, one serious and 14 minor injuries, plus daily near misses; most injury crashes here involve pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Not only is a safety fix well overdue, it should clearly prioritise protecting the most vulnerable.
https://twitter.com/AlecTang_/status/983607616596205568
You can see the plans here, and the project team will be at a drop-in session on Saturday 21 September, 11am to 2pm, Royal Oak Mall, Community Centre room (opposite the Food Court).
As always, here’s a handy link for feedback, plus our suggestions of what you might say. However: this one is complicated and we’re really not satisfied, so we strongly suggest you scroll down for more details.
Feedback is open until Sunday 6 October at 5pm – go for it!
GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK HERE
Bike AKL’s feedback suggestions:
- Build the raised crossings, and make sure they’re steep enough to properly slow vehicles. Because this proposal is already so limited, it must not be watered down further by smoothing out the raised tables.
- Move the crossings closer to the roundabout, so pedestrians don’t have to double their journeys. This will also help slow down traffic in the roundabout itself, which will make it safer for people on bikes, at least somewhat.
- Upgrade the crossings on Mt Albert Road as well. These (existing) raised tables are the furthest from the intersection, and are too-gently sloped and built to outdated standards. In short, they are weak, and poor. (This is also one of the most dangerous arms of the intersection for pedestrians, see 2015, 2019)
- Remove car-parking spaces that block visibility of and for people waiting to cross and for drivers entering the roundabout. In particular, outside Ollies/ the Chip Shop and the Post Office.
- Add a second set of traffic calming treatments as cars enter the roundabout. The current design, with the significantly set-back raised crossings, allow cars to speed up again as they head into the roundabout. AT should raise the roundabout itself, so entering drivers have at least one more reminder: “don’t speed here”.
- Reduce the number of traffic lanes on the approaches and on the roundabout itself. Multi-lane roundabouts are hostile and unsafe for people walking and biking, and have no place in a residential town centre.
- (Re)widen all the footpaths around the roundabout, and add bike lanes around the roundabout. Dedicating one traffic lane to human beings walking and biking in their town centre is decades overdue and would be evidence that AT is truly committed to safety of vulnerable road users. Anything short of this is just tinkering.
The brave new context for safer, people-centred streets
When we heard AT was proposing road safety improvements to this five-armed (and historically, six-armed) vortex of busy, criss-crossing multilane roads where people also try to walk to the shops and bus stops, and others do their best to survive on a bike – we felt a tiny glimmer of hope.
After all, AT had just released its new street design guide, showing for the very first time a roundabout with proper pedestrian and cycle priority!
What’s more, AT also just adopted a Vision Zero safety policy, confirming its expressed determination to act “in full and without question” on the recommendations of the 2018 Howard Report into Auckland’s road safety crisis.
And yet at the same time as these strong words and guidelines, AT seems to have hit the brakes on taking action. After brave noises in 2018 about proactively reducing unsafe speeds, we have yet to see safer speeds in place as we roll towards the end of 2019. Other road safety projects are being delayed and watered down. Has action on safety entered the same mysterious gravity-well as the building of bikeways?
Which brings us back to the proposal for the Royal Oak roundabout. Instead of a shining example of the new safety approach, the design essentially does a bit of tinkering around the edges. The elephant in the room – the stampede of elephants in the middle of the circus – remains undisturbed.
What’s in AT’s proposal? One good thing…
The key safety change is the raised zebra crossings. Assuming AT uses the relatively steep designs it’s been building across the city over the last year, this will be a significant safety win.
Raised crossings reduce pedestrian crashes by 60-70%, depending on local conditions – because they make pedestrians (and their legal right of way) more visible, and because drivers have to slow down to negotiate the bump. Raised crossings make drivers less likely to bully their way through with the brute force logic of a vehicle that outmasses puny human beings by a factor of 20.
Of course, the dual lanes and high traffic volumes mean Royal Oak won’t become a pedestrian paradise overnight. But raising the crossings is a laudable move.
… and a bunch of glaring gaps
Sadly, the raised tables are also where the good news ends. The rest of the proposal is focused on moving cars. Some minor changes to traffic islands to reduce weaving between lanes in the middle of the roundabout. Two car parks removed, but not for safety as such; mostly to allow earlier access to turning lanes.
Here’s what’s not in the plan:
- Of the five roads that converge on the roundabout – ALL of which have have two lanes – not one is reduced to a single lane to make the roundabout less intimidating for people on bikes and motorbikes, or easier for pedestrians to cross.
- No lane reduction on the roundabout itself, either. Drivers will continue to frantically look for gaps in the oncoming two-lane stream of big boxy shapes, thus missing the rare smaller figures manoeuvring in between.
- None of the five pedestrian crossings moves any closer to the roundabout to become more convenient for people on foot.
- No wider footpaths for the local shops;
- No bike lanes at all.
- No bus priority, even.
- And no formal reduction in the speed limit from 50kmh.
Raised crossings aside, this is a very, very limited scheme, and it shows how little AT is still willing to touch the sacred status quo. We’re officially disappointed.
How did we get here? A visual history of this merry-go-round
Royal Oak has been an important cross-roads for a long time: six major roads meet here, although these days, “only” five of them actually lead into the roundabout itself.
And the intersection isn’t particularly large: a 25m radius circle between the buildings – not exactly tiny, but only about half the size of the Panmure roundabout, which also has six roads. (Not that the extra space available in Panmure was used for the benefit of people…)
Over the last century, the car steadily claimed more and more of this limited space at Royal Oak, at the expense of people walking, biking, catching trams.
Where are we headed – is there hope on the horizon?
The current layout has been in place for 30+ years, and will barely be touched by the current project. Is it fair to burden a single road safety project with remedying all the sins of the last half century of motordom? Probably not.
We repeat: the proposed changes are good, assuming they’re not watered down through the consultation.
But they’re not good enough: this 2019 tweak ensures the heart of the town centre remains dominated by cars for the foreseeable future.
Is a more substantial 21st C safety upgrade in the offing? Well yes, in theory: Manukau Road through Royal Oak is part of AT’s Connected Communities programme, previously dubbed Integrated Corridors. The aim is to prioritise key arterial road corridors across Auckland for walking, cycling, public transport and safety, with substantial changes to roads and intersections as needed.
While the detailed principles and process of the programme aren’t clear yet, at the Royal Oak roundabout it might involve taking lanes to make space for better footpaths and bike lanes, and moving the pedestrian crossings closer-in, where they belong. Or maybe it’ll juggle vehicle flow and human beings in a constrained space by signalising the intersection, with bike lanes and better pedestrian crossings.
Either approach would need to reduce car traffic, and might even disconnect one of the five remaining arms of the intersection (discussion on the community Facebook page suggests Campbell Road as an option for closure at the roundabout end, with children’s safety top of mind). Anything is possible when “connecting communities” is your goal.
But Connected Communities is one of AT’s more… ponderous… programmes. Even in the midst of a climate and road safety crisis, the planning phase alone will take several more years, and most of the corridors on the list won’t see any works until 5-8 years beyond that – that’s assuming nothing is delayed, watered down, defunded, or otherwise quietly shelved. So, while there’s some hope on the horizon for a more humane Royal Oak roundabout sometime this century, it’s hardly soon, nor is it confirmed.
Our suggested feedback… for now
In the meantime, what’s the best way to respond to this severely limited design?
Rejecting it outright might amount to a vote for the status quo, in that we can picture a consultation summary along the lines of “most respondents said the proposal wasn’t acceptable.”
That’s why we recommend you support the design on its merits – while also demanding much better, in line with AT’s own public commitments to road safety.
Here again are our suggestions for what to say, from “most likely to happen” to “less likely, but let’s call on AT to act in accordance with its public principles”:
- Build the raised crossings – and make sure they’re steep enough to properly slow vehicles. Because this proposal is already so limited, it must not be watered down further by smoothing out the raised tables.
- Move the crossings closer to the roundabout, so pedestrians don’t have to double their journeys. This will also help slow down traffic in the roundabout itself, which will make it safer for people on bikes, at least somewhat.
- Upgrade the crossings on Mt Albert Road as well. These (existing) raised tables are the furthest from the intersection, and are too-gently sloped and built to oudated standards. In short, they are weak, and poor. (This is also one of the most dangerous arms of the intersection for pedestrians, see 2015, 2019)
- Remove car-parking spaces that block visibility of and for people waiting to cross and for drivers entering the roundabout. In particular, outside Ollies/ the Chip Shop and the Post Office.
- Add a second set of traffic calming treatments as cars enter the roundabout. The current design, with the significantly set-back raised crossings, allow cars to speed up again as they head into the roundabout. AT should raise the roundabout itself, so entering drivers have at least one more reminder: “don’t speed here”.
- Reduce the number of traffic lanes on the approaches and on the roundabout itself. Multi-lane roundabouts are hostile and unsafe for people walking and biking, and have no place in a residential town centre.
- (Re)widen all the footpaths around the roundabout and add bike lanes around the roundabout, befitting a safe, welcoming, and sustainable town centre. Dedicating one traffic lane to human beings walking and biking in and through their town centre would be clear evidence that AT is truly committed to improving the safety of vulnerable road users, via actions, not just words. Sorry to be blunt, but anything short of this is just going round in circles.
And here’s that feedback link again – add your voice before Sunday 6 October at 5pm!
GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK HERE
Bonus section: Top ten tweets about how horrifying the Royal Oak roundabout is
All the worst drivers in Auckland meet at Royal Oak roundabout – oh you're already here #smh
— DJ Sir-Vere (O.N.Z.M) (@djsirvere) July 5, 2015
https://twitter.com/SianChristinaK/status/1164119058624593921
Never mind Mont Ventoux, the true pinnacle of cycling achievement is negotiating the Royal Oak roundabout.
— Lachlan Forsyth (@LachlanForsyth) August 2, 2013
first time cycling to @RoyalOakNZ shops! Am terrified of that notorious Royal Oak roundabout, so took a scenic detour. pic.twitter.com/yOvB5SaUeS
— Amanda Chapman (@AmandaWasteFree) February 5, 2018
https://twitter.com/AlecTang_/status/1124238278322819074
There was a guy on a lime scooter on Mt Smart road, on the way to Onehunga/Royal Oak. Good luck on the roundabout buddy.
— VC (@Rooftop_gambler) November 9, 2018
The royal oak roundabout you honestly just have to drive & hope for the best
— ♍️ (@jafaas0) January 18, 2017
I don’t imagine there is a greater roading hell than the Royal Oak Roundabout at 5.30 p.m on a weekday… though I am open to your suggestions.
— MarkMyWords (@MarkSReynolds) October 25, 2018
If I owned a tow truck company; I would wait on the Royal Oak Roundabout for business.
— TrueReckons (@Sherida7William) May 8, 2017
Every time I get through the Royal Oak roundabout (aka Suicide Corner) safely, I say a silent prayer. #aucklandlife
— Trudie McConnochie (@WriteOnTime_) April 28, 2013
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It’s no wonder AT gets the bad rep. Where’s the leadership in this proposal or even alignment with their own programmes and guidelines? I understand it’s a big organisation, but seriously? Why even bother with an ‘upgrade’ like this?
Yes. I think it’s possibly even worse than that the project doesn’t align with their own programmes. This is what their own programmes produce.
Back when I first started researching Vision Zero I learnt that there are two types of VZ cities – those that adopt it and those that give it lipservice. Auckland Transport seems to have elevated lipservice to a new level. They seem to canvas resistance to improvements, delaying change for maximum kickback, and this is sending things further into car dominance anarchy.
Remember how long they dragged their feet about providing training in Vision Zero (best part of a year), and in adopting it (15 months or so). That didn’t just delay things; it nurtured the culture of resistance to change in the organisation, and allowed the guardians of the road-building machinery to hone their strategy.
This roundabout is simply a product of that process.
I’m a bit late to this, but why don’t they just close the end of Campbell Road and make this a normal four way intersection with direct crossings?
That would ease traffic and free up heaps of room for wider footpaths and a better street environment. You’d probably get a new carpark in at the end of Campbell too.
Gotta love high raised tables – punishing for small cars with aerodynamic splitters that are designed for efficiency but rewarding the growing population of SUV drivers.
In all honesty though, this roundabout is a mess. Go back to the 1940 intersection and stick the tram back in (I am 100% serious). I don’t think this is realistically salvageable any other way.
Also, why is there carparking *immediately* before a pedestrian crossing? Drivers sit on the right, they can’t see around parked cars until they’re almost past them. This is a massive problem on Tamaki Drive and I can’t believe we’re still designing it into roading upgrades.
thank you for raising this issue — which also struck me as bizarre. And note that in some places there’s parking before and after the crossing. Imagine what a car trying to parallel park their will do to safety and efficiency. Much better to move the crossing closer to the stop-line before entering the roundabout and then provide parking only on the approach, rather than after the crossing.
Yep, the SUVs have even abandoned the ‘off-road’ marketing and are proudly advertising that it’s really about being able to mount hostile streetscapes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALtGqSdt-4w
While this ad is disturbing I was pleasantly surprised to note that they went out of their way to show pedestrians and cyclists having no trouble with the speed bump whatsoever.
On that “disturbing” point… I’m not sure trying to sell the least ideal cars using advertising that includes other road users is actually worse than using the traditional (empty road) model to sell more meritorious (i.e. smaller and/or greener) vehicles. I mean, at least they’re being honest about what the car is actually good for, which gives a launching point to counteract the bankrupt ideologies the traditional model reinforces (and so making such ads complicit in the overengineering of more-or-less worthy roads into monstrosities and fuelling public demand for pointless holiday highways).
Of course, given the ad’s speed bump “honest” is not really an appropriate description. But you never know… people might misinterpret the ad and in this fashion it acts to destabilise the normative ideology of car worship.
+1
The Panmure roundabout is getting removed and replaced with traffic lights and so should Royal Oak roundabout.
Agreed!
+1 absolutely!
Remember that part of being able to signalise the Panmure roundabout was the removal of a large component of through traffic via a new link (Te Horeta Road).
I suspect the Panmure roundabout is getting converted to signals because its the cheapest way to get the busway through.
Will they be eliminating the PT use of this intersection?
Is it possible to have bus priority on one lane from each direction.
Light controls seem to be the only solution and enable the pedestrian crossings to be closer to the desire lines. But how to deal with the exits from each light phase?
It would have been better to separate the traffic and the busway traffic going along lagoon drive through a tunnel in the centre of the roundabout, making it like a motorway intersection. Other traffic would simply have gone round the outside removing most of the volume from the roundabout itself. Having lived on the roundabout at one stage, the traffic lights are going to create massive tailbacks as I expect the dynamic lanes on Lagoon drive will be removed.
Agree, the design of our roads is becoming so hostile for small cars that it pretty much seems the powers at be want everyone driving SUVs that have reduced levels of safety for both pedestrians and their occupants.
Ford, will only be making SUVs and trucks in North America moving forward. SUVs are the fastest growing segment internationally. Given the mass involved small cars will always come off worst. Only so much impact force can be mitigated.
You’re assuming the only crash involves two cars impacting head on.
In reality crashes happen in a wide range of situations, in a typical loss of control crash for instance a SUV is much more likely to roll over causing serious injury.
When it comes to pedestrian crashes, SUVs are less forgiving than sedans and other similar vehicles with lower bonnets.
Wishing hard enough won’t get SUVs off the roads but until we do we’re going to have to compromise the design of our streets to accommodate them. We’d need to introduce some limits/disincentives based on ride height/maximum suspension travel but what do these look like?
Additional RUCs?
A new licence class?
Something else?
We’ve reached the maximum in Europe, if utes get any larger still you’ll need a light truck class driver license to operate them. (the max gross weight must be under 3,500kg). In New Zealand I think we can go up all the way to 6 tonne.
Maybe the same will happen as with diesel engines, at some point cities may start restricting access to some areas for very large cars.
A tentative, halfway step could be restricting where they can be parked. SUVs have negative effects on the city when they’re being driven, but if they’re parked on-street they block footpaths and/or roads as well, and they spend most of their time parked.
In areas with resident permits, city councils could refuse to issue permits to vehicles that are wider or longer than a certain threshold. In other areas, the council could pass bylaws prohibiting vehicles over a certain size from being parked on-street for more than N days. This is something that’s already done for trailers and campervans, for example.
So several years before anything starts.
Why does it take so long?
So probably another death in that time, multiple injuries and literally dozens of near misses every hour from now until whenever something changes.
Unbelievable.
This intersection needs to have traffic lights and urgently. Trying to negotiate round it in to Mt Albert Rd with a high large vehicle is interesting to say the least, with the verandah on the corner, I’m surprised it hasn’t been (forcefully) removed by now.
Campbell Rd could easily be closed at the Onehunga Mall intersection and traffic routed down there to Mt Smart Rd, and then the intersection becomes an easy 4 way cross road.
There is a small agreement for a smaller central island which with pedestrian and cycle lights could have all pedestrian and cyclist cross in to the centre and then cross again to the point they wish to travel to. This central island would best have a cover to protect people from rain while waiting to make their second cross.
And as a “benefit” there would be an opportunity for advertising above the pedestrian island to help pay for the upgrade.
I refuse to cycle through it and use the laneways/carparks on the Maungakieikie side of Manukau Rd, but even that’s fraught with danger.
I’m surprised a child hasn’t been seriously injured at the pedestrian crossing by Ollies, it’s heavily obscured by 2 car parks between the roundabout and the crossing. Even knowing it’s there and slowing to 20km, I still jam on the brakes from time to time as someone tears across it.
Royal Oak s actually a busy Auckland village, but its totally car dependent.
Stop fiddling tweaks to the round about and take a holistic look at the community. As a local we DON’T walk or cycle there, because even in a metal coffin its dangerous.
It has
-Manukau road is a major bus route
-Some danger seeking hard core commuting cyclists
-Significant increases in residential density occurring
-Two schools in close walking distance.
-Lots of food places, chemists, Post office etc.
-The streets through the roundabout are all wide
-Some Icons – Barfoots building, missing monument, Ollies
Put in some decent urban design, mixed use, trees, places to site, BIKE PARKS!
Close off Campbell Road, and rework the intersection to suit the village and all transport needs. Encourage he locals to walk and cycle.
Put bus lanes and cycle ways through from Trafalgar st, all the way up to Green fields corner. Extend the cycle ways to Royal Oak intermediate, Primary and Onehunga High School.
I don’t know why this isn’t being considered. They have already changed it from 6 way to 5 way by re routing Manukau road, why not do the same with Campbell. Its just so obvious isn’t it?
In addition the current traffic throughput is abysmal at peak times, so I think a traffic lights and a barnes dance (or maybe even two per cycle) would easily get better throughput of cars too.
As I see it, if a smaller island if left and Campbell Rd is closed off, and traffic signals installed:
If instead of the pedestrian crossing going across each road they crossed to the central island then with the use of the lights as:
Green only to Mt Albert Rd and Pedestrian from opposite side of Mt Albert Rd to traffic flow, pedestrians cross in the central safety island.
Next Green only to Manukau Rd (north) and Pedestrian from opposite side of Manukau Rd to traffic flow.
Then Green Mt Smart Rd and Pedestrian on opposite side, and finally green for Manukau Rd (south) with pedestrian opposite side.
This would give uninterrupted traffic flow for each of the four roads, except for any traffic that proceeds around the island and back down the road they came from, which should be minimal.
Yes there will be some inconvenience to Pedestrian and cyclist waiting on the island for the light phase to continue to the road they wish to continue on, but it should make overall traffic flow a lot smoother and maybe even speed the intersection up.
30 years ago there was a council proposal to build a an overpass linking Mt Albert and Mt Smart Roads. Since then the south Western motorway has been built.
If flow were restricted on Mt Albert and Mt Smart Roads how much traffic would be diverted to the motorway? Does the roundabout have to be consider as a through route anymore? Should speed and flow be configured to make Royal Oak suitable for local traffic only
+1
If it were me I would just replace the roundabout that doesn’t work with a set of traffic signals that wouldn’t work either, at least it would be safer. The reduction in traffic capacity would create queues until people do what the rest of us do and avoid the place entirely. Even that would be an improvement, we could avoid Royal Oak due to congestion rather than avoiding it because we don’t want to be injured.
The problem is people view the existing nonsense as the baseline and think a successful option needs to get as many people through.
” The reduction in traffic capacity would create queues until people do what the rest of us do and avoid the place entirely.”
Miffy’s right really. What can we really do here.
Even the raised crossings are going to create somewhat more queuing, I can hear the complaints already.
Reducing to single lane approaches will do this even more so, then the buses including Heidi’s 66 bus will be delayed at times.
You could remove the Campbell Rd connection, retail right near there will definitely not like this but they could be convinced. This would increase traffic volumes & possibly speed along the northern end of Onehunga Mall, you would have to stop people short-cutting through behind Barfoots probably.
Interesting on Twitter people were suggesting the opposite & saying the ped crossings should be moved further away from the roundabout (unless I was mistaken) I think as driver are so occupied with the giving way to moving boxes etc they suddenly are confronted with a ped crossing.
Yes I agree though speed reduction would definitely help, everyone driving needs to just take a chill pill. People seem to panic and jump through trying not to get hit by the person to their right whereby also being part of the problem for the driver on their left. So slow design is the really the only way. The Panmure one is much faster, this should be a slow edge you way through kind of feel sized one.
If you really wanted to be radical (some ideas that are probably very non standard) you could add an extra ped crossing further away from the roundabout on each leg. Peds wanting to just cross one road wouldn’t have to walk so far. This would slow & calm things massively.
Instead of the double lanes near the intersection you could have bus only lanes with the bus stops in-line a lot close to the centre. There are two frequent bus routes through here the 30 north-south & 66 east-west. What motivation is there to ditch the car & use them if they sit with the other general traffic at peak times. Single lane general traffic & bus only, if they sit there a bit picking up or dropping off passengers it doesn’t really matter.
Grant, I’m hoping that miffy’s having a good chuckle into his cup of tea. I certainly am. Changing to traffic lights to improve safety, and so “the reduction in traffic capacity would create queues until people do what the rest of us do and avoid the place entirely” is another way of saying that creating congestion to reduce traffic is acceptable to him.
Which is kind of funny. When I suggest reducing congestion and traffic concurrently, along with improving the active and public transport modes, by doing so consistently and comprehensively across the city, miffy has criticised my ideas as using congestion to reduce traffic.
Traffic lights may be the best solution. Or maybe a roundabout is. Whichever it is, it needs to involve road capacity reduction here and elsewhere in order to reduce traffic volumes. And it needs to be accompanied by enforcement to ensure that drivers stop in accordance with safe driving and road code, whether it’s for a pedestrian crossing or a traffic light.
Reading this blog has made me modify my views Heidi. I am fine with reducing capacity and using congestion and high emissions as a means of managing traffic flow (so long as it is somewhere I don’t have to go.)
The real answer for this intersection is don’t do this in the first place. Some lunatic joined six streets in one place and created a problem that never needed to exist. So the real solution has always been to divert one of the five remaining approaches and join it to an adjacent street at a second intersection and signalise the whole mess. but once you get a substandard roundabout like this or Panmure in place then everyone has the devils own job to rip it out again because of the politics involved.
Yep, repair is always harder.
This is all kind of humorous & true at the same time Miffy. How much effect is this roundabout having on keeping people away from the area, especially those less confident at driving.
Agree with Heidi though, any change needs to be accompanied by enforcement.
PS I’ve realised that over the years I think it’s generally Campbell Rd I end up in by accident when meaning to get to Mt Smart, either being in the wrong lane or not having time to figure which road is what, it tends to scoop you into that road. This is half of what, as per the FB community group complaining about, speeding drivers along that road could be caused by.
“You could remove the Campbell Rd connection,”: Not sure anyone is proposing to close it altogether are they? I assumed it would be diverted to join with Manukau Road a bit further down from the roundabout with another signalised intersection (maybe even combined with the Pak n Save exit).
No just at the roundabout end. Greatly simplifying movement & giving more space to other nicer things.
Main arterial alternative is to enter & exit via Mt Smart Rd & Onehunga Mall.
One problem is the upper end of Onehunga Mall is not sized for the Campbell Road traffic that would divert.
It’s not a bad idea. I think closing Manukau Road and pushing the traffic to Pah Road is a better option.
People are recommending traffic lights. I’m not so sure. We have plenty of too-large intersections with traffic lights that still prioritise traffic flow, are too large for cyclist safety and make the pedestrians cross each leg one by one, with huge waits between. They prevent walking and cycling. They create situations where people walking and cycling have such poor amenity they take risks just to get places. With the same people in charge, and their disregard for pedestrians and cyclists, a traffic light solution here could be absolutely dire.
Is this not an ideal opportunity to do what they are doing overseas, and reduce this monstrosity to human-scale? They could reduce the number of lanes on each road coming into the roundabout to one, remove one connection – say, Campbell Rd – and trial an actually safer roundabout?
It’d be MUCH safer. It’d provide data so we’d know whether we should do it elsewhere. It’d encourage modeshift and reduce traffic throughout the area and therefore encourage even more modeshift. It’d reduce carbon emissions and the traffic reduction would support all sorts of local endeavours.
So what would the downsides be? (Remembering they are not allowed to compromise safety with prioritising traffic flow.)
You can’t build a roundabout here small enough to have a traffic calming effect because it needs to be large enough for buses to negotiate. Any roundabout built to account for the swept path of a bus will be at least as big as the current one, which will encourage motorists to drive through as fast as possible.
Hmmm. With the space made available by reducing the number of lanes, you don’t think we could design it to give cues that this is a place to drive slowly? Coupled with ITF and VZ-compliant speed limits in the whole area?
The key is to make the rbt a single lane. It’s the angle of entry that dictates traffic speed/safety more than the actual circle radius (up to a point). The two-lane entry is what prevents a slow angle of entry. You then can provide a truck apron in the centre for buses and trucks to mount, but that wouldn’t allow cars to cut the centre at high speeds.
The tiny Peel Street roundabout along Richmond Road has buses negotiate it. I’m not sure you are correct here.
I think in this case it would need a barnes dance being a town centre. Maybe two per cycle.
I cycle through this roundabout and I don’t like it. I own the lane by riding in the centre. As a pedestrian the crossings are not safe, I’ve seen near misses and somebody hit.
Raised tables and single lanes would be good but they won’t really fix the volume of cars and people in a hurry not looking.
I think closing a road and turning it into a normal traffic light controlled barnes dance intersection would provide the safest way to cross by bicycle and as a pedestrian. It eliminates the risk of cars pulling out from the side and would minimize walking distance. Its also more politically sellable.
With one road closed the intersection becomes smaller. I don’t think it would be a “too large intersection”, the space is reasonably small already, unless buildings are demolished.
The intersection is a bottleneck without many alternatives. Single lanes would increase traffic congestion, fuel consumption and emissions.
“Single lanes would increase traffic congestion, fuel consumption and emissions.”
Good comment apart from this inaccuracy. Just as adding road capacity does not reduce emissions, reducing road capacity does not increase them. Reducing road capacity reduces traffic volumes, and so although there may be increased emissions at this one location, there will be reduced emissions at all the other places of congestion that those cars would’ve travelled.
http://cityobservatory.org/urban-myth-busting_idling_carbon/
It would be interesting to see some research on this that takes in a more global look.
If you were to reduce the number of lanes here it would increase congestion and hence time spent traveling which has a direct link to emissions. It would also increase distance traveled as people took alternative less congested routes which is also directly linked to emissions.
Of course this increased congestion would also result in people simply not making the trip and so you would save on emissions that way whilst losing out on the economic activity that person was creating.
If I were to look at my personal situation, I travel when its less congested which means I can often get about 7l/100km during my commute. However if I get stuck in peak traffic this can go up to 20-30l/100km. Certainly for me and other like me reduced road capacity and increased congestion greatly increases our fuel consumption, it also results in lost time and the need to work from home.
If you’re looking for a global look at the situation, the point of view of what “a driver would do” is but one tiny part of the puzzle.
So we know from the low traffic neighbourhoods work that the naysayers also said, as you have here: “It would also increase distance traveled as people took alternative less congested routes”. In their situation, blocking roads and increasing the distance people had to drive didn’t increase emissions. A few people did indeed increase their distance travelled, but so many more were finally able to adopt walking and cycling and public transport that there was a decrease in emissions.
Of course, that may be because they designed the whole system, not just reacted piecemeal to one congested roundabout.
Where are these low traffic neighborhoods that you know work?
Overseas I guess…?
This is one of the problems in this discussion. It is really hard to imagine what we’re talking about because these neighbourhoods don’t exist over here. You may just as well try to discuss the design of Rapture under the Atlantic.
I’ve certainly heard of “low traffic neighborhoods”, by all accounts I live in one. Yet be my neighborhood a low traffic one or the most hostile one for pedestrians and cyclists you could imagine it would make zero difference for myself or the majority of other people who live there as to how we commute to work each day.
This is why I’m interested to see these ones that apparently work and as to if it has anything to do with the design of the neighborhood.
Plenty of links here to get you started, Richard. It’d be great if you did try to follow what’s going on in progressive places, as your impression that,
“Yet be my neighborhood a low traffic one or the most hostile one for pedestrians and cyclists you could imagine it would make zero difference for myself or the majority of other people who live there as to how we commute to work each day.”
is not how things pan out. Changes in how the neighbourhood works for cycling and walking do indeed change what people do.
I was actually looking for you to provide an example Heidi, not a veiled insult.
Sorry, Richard, I copied a link and forgot to paste it in:
Here it is: https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2019/07/26/mini-hollands-in-nieuw-zeeland-a-global-template/
The global look is that many trips will still happen, just not by car.
At some point one of our councillors quite infamously stated he can’t imagine how people would get their groceries without driving.
How many parents can imagine their kids riding their bicycle to school without nearly (or actually) getting killed?
These are the sort of things which are obvious in low traffic neighbourhoods… but that stuff is almost totally unheard of in Auckland.
Any examples at all? … there’s Wynyard Quarter, but it has no school nearby and by virtue of its location and thus its real estate price, as a place to live it is irrelevant to 99% of the population. Other than that we just don’t build that sort of environment over here.
Thanks for the link Hedi.
I’ll have a read and check out the various links.
“Any examples at all? … there’s Wynyard Quarter,”
How is Wynard Quarter in any way shape or form a “low traffic neighborhood”? It’s by all accounts a normal every day neighborhood. The only reason it has high pedestrian volumes is because it has a whole heap of fancy new cafes, bars and restaurants right on the waterfront. Its effectivly the same as the Viaduct harbour that was built 20 years ago.
I’d say an example of a low traffic neighborhood is Hobsonville Point which has similar traffic calming features to Wynyard but also provides plenty green routes and shortcuts for pedestrians and cyclists to take. Generally no matter where you live there you can easily walk or cycle to the local schools. The big issues it does have however, much like the rest of the city, is that there is very little in the way of employment there and so many people work some 20km away and hence are unlikely to walk or cycle to work because they don’t want to spend 4 to 8 hours a day commuting.
Having lived in both walkable neighborhoods and place like Manukau Rd I can say it has made zero difference as to if I walk to the shops or not as it was just as easy in both places. And I certainly saw no shortage of kids walking or busing to school. The bigger limitation on kids walking to school seems to be more that many parents assume the school they live near isn’t good enough and choose to send their kids to a school some 10km away.
This roundabout used to be infamous as the formal boundary lines between about 5 former Auckland isthmus councils and boroughs. The ones that existed en-masse and infested the area up until the 1989 reforms that merged them all and created Auckland City Council.
This dogs dinner of an issue is well over 30+ years old.
None of the 5 or so councils who each owned a segment (or two) of this very messy pie could ever agree on what needed to be done, when it was going to be done and most importantly [for them], whose ratepayers were [or were not] going to pay to have it done.
And these local council(lor)s all argued, that most of the benefits fell to ratepayers in other councils – including all the ones further west or south of the 5 who directly bordered it – so all these roundabout using ratepayers from out of the district were going to ride on the backs of the ratepayers in these 5 councils if any money was spent on sorting out the mess.
So nothing got done. Neatly sums up Auckland council politics for decades really.
From memory [and for the record] 4 of the councils were:
Mt Roskill Borough Council (BC)
Onehunga BC
One Tree Hill BC
Auckland City Council (ACC)
I think Mt Eden Borough Council was in the mix too. Or maybe it was the Ellerslie BC?
But to be having this conversation 30 years after the original mergers took place and all we have to show is one street of the original 6 is now closed off from the roundabout is not much progress at all.
It was never part of the pre 1989 Auckland City Council. I worked there and our nearest boundary was Remuera.
Sorry Auckland City Council had Epsom as well as a weird extra block but the boundary was well north of Royal Oak. This map is 1952 but Auckland was the yellow and orange up to amalgamation with the rest of the Isthmus. https://teara.govt.nz/en/map/16445/local-government-on-the-tamaki-isthmus-1871-1952
Signals would be “safer”, but much increased delays for everyone, especially pedestrians.
Only if they were crossing one road, if they were crossing more then signals would be faster – more direct.
As you have pointed out in this post, the roundabout is too small (especially for 5 roads – and quite busy ones at that).
I’m not a fan of traffic lights in general, but short of them demolishing a building to make room for a larger roundabout they need to turn this into a signalised intersection.
That way you have less accidents, you get back your safety for pedestrians and cyclists (including better desire lines for people to use), and if LR is ever built down this road it can be accommodated (which this roundabout can’t do – I’ll also add it isn’t great for buses either).
The suggestion to reduce each road to one lane in nonsense – these are busy main arterial roads and there is no viable bypass (certainly not without going through residential areas).
I know this roundabout very well having lived within 500m of it for several years and have used it both on foot, on a bus and driving.
The desire to move the crossings closer to the roundabout seems rather contrary to the safety objectives of the project.
I cycle through this roundabout regularly to get to Onehunga. I’m a pretty fearless cyclist, but it’s scary, and I do it very slowly.
Close Campbell Rd and signalise. And bike lanes and nice high raised crossings.
you’re welcome.
We have a roundabout on SH1 down on the Kapiti Coast that has a really effective “go-slow” feature designed into it. NZTA purposely designed it with negative camber, so that if you are going too fast you skis off, or if you are a big truck going too fast then your entire truck and trailer rolls over. Remarkably effective in slowing traffic. When your truck has rolled it usually blocks both lanes and thus takes several hours to clear away. In the mean time the traffic “calming” has reduced to a speed of Zero, thereby ensuring maximum pedestrian utilization of the asphalt surface. NZTA has repeatedly declined to change camber, insisting it is by the book and perfect as is.
Nah…just put a Arc de Triomphe of some sort on the roundabout.
Pedestrian crossings that close to a roundabout are high risk and will achieve the opposite of safety. As a pedestrian, I do not ever want to be that close to the action.
Modern cars have quite raked windscreens with thick A-pillars that create unsafe blindspots that can mask an entire person from view whilst cornering. You exit a left cornering manoeuvre and there’s a lot going on control-wise and looking ahead, the viewable distance is non-existent as you are on a sharp corner. You may glance right more than once just ensuring as you turn you didn’t miss anything to the right meanwhile your vision is blocked by the A-pillar to your left and boom, you hit a pedestrian crossing and maybe a pedestrian.
Worse it’s raised meaning the vehicles exiting the roundabout now have to brake to go over the raised crossing and remain inside the roundabout as cars are proceeding through. This is an unnecessary risk and again there is way too much going on for a driver without taking into account the crossing.
Whatever AT do, do NOT go with this design.
That all sounds like you’re driving too fast for whatever roundabout you’re on.
The biggest problem you have here is not so much that you have to give way to traffic coming from a few directions, the issue is that you have to give way to cars coming from your right potentially coming in at 50 km/h. That is just not done in those European countries where that roundabout design comes from.
As soon as you are on that roundabout you look ahead, that gives you plenty of time to stop for a pedestrian crossing set back more or less one car length away. Note the scale in the header image, that setback is way overdone, that should be at most 1 to 2 car lengths, similar to the Dutch roundabout image.
Occlusion by the A pillar is a general problem, not specific to roundabouts. You’ll have the same issue at any zebra crossing, or a signalized left turn where pedestrians may still be crossing.
Again, there is a lot going on at that moment for any driver in the roundabout. Putting a crossing as part of of the roundabouts infrastructure just heightens risk, unnecessarily.
And tsk tsking about what drivers should and shouldn’t do is not going to mitigate risk.
I’ve said it before most drivers skill levels are so poor they probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel in the first instance. And roundabouts are a classic watching these idiots trying to negotiate them. Do we need to heighten risk any further ?
I’m a pedestrian too. I also care about what happens to me and just because I should be able to blindly walk out on a crossing because its located slightly more conveniently and because I’m entitled to will not save the pain if I am taken out by a vehicle contributed from an already known piss poor design.
The key criteria is the distance from the entrance to the crossing, rather than the just the exit.
Ideally the crossing would be at least 30m (for a low speed roundabout) from where a vehicle enters the roundabout so the driver has time to switch from looking for traffic about to crash into them from the right to looking for pedestrians about to jump out in front of them from the left
A good (or bad) example of this is the new roundabout on Franklin Rd. That particular roundabout has been designed with the crossing on England St so close to down hill entry that it almost seems its design intention was to generate crashes.
Pedestrian crossings that are *not* close to the roundabout are high risk, because they are a long way from the desire line of people wanting to cross the road at the intersection. People being people, they will ignore the enforced inconvenient diversion, and cross without using the crossing.
Mike M
And this is why we need to put things like fences and barriers in place to prevent people from putting themselves in danger. This is all part of vision zero.
no, it’s not good practice. It’s antiquated design practice that conflicts with AT’s recently released street design manual.
Like Roeland said, if vehicles can’t yield to a pedestrian upon exiting the roundabout, then they’re travelling too fast. And the solution to that is not pushing the crossing back or fences, rather it’s slowing vehicles down at entry. As the raised crossings do quite nicely, along with a tight turning radius.
That’s Vision Zero.
Stu, have actually thought about this?
If vehicles don’t yield to pedestrians may have absolutely zero to do with speed and everything to do with not seeing the pedestrian. Crossings right at the border of a road intersection only work with traffic light controlled intersections. In give way situations the vehicles may well remain in motion whilst cornering, whilst anticipating traffic from the opposite direction and therefore line of sight, whilst entering that next road.
A crucial difference!
Sounds to me that you’re simply trying to play the blame game Stu which is the opposite of vision zero.
No, Richard. Describing how to slow the vehicles with design to prevent the problem of vehicles travelling too fast to yield is not a blame game. It’s Vision Zero.
I have to disagree with you Stu. Hoping to slow vehicles down with some design elements is sometimes wishful thinking. If you want Vision Zero then you have to prevent crashes. The relationship between intervisibility and speed means that even a slow vehicle (even a bike) can pose a hazard for people to cross at a particular location. When you have that situation you have to restrict the pedestrian in some manner otherwise you have failed your Vision Zero test. (I have always hated that term, I don’t think it translates to English well and makes it sound like someone should have gone to Specsavers.)
“No, Richard. Describing how to slow the vehicles with design to prevent the problem of vehicles travelling too fast to yield is not a blame game. It’s Vision Zero.”
Sorry Heidi, but you just blamed car drivers in your post “vehicles travelling too fast to yield”.
Vision Zero involves creating a Safe System, a ‘Safe System’ is one where people can make mistakes without it resulting in death of a serious injury.
Moving a crossing too close to a roundabout does the complete opposite of this by greatly increasing the chances of someones mistake resulting in a death or serious injury. It also goes against the health and safety legislation as rather then trying to eliminate the hazard it increases the hazard and simply hopes that maybe the adverse effect of the hazard will be reduced.
That sounds like what you do on a limited access road.
I would think the Swedish and Dutch would have figured out how to do this on streets as well. I don’t think it usually involves fences.
I agree with Mr Miffy here.
If fencing pedestrians off in town centres is the only truly safe solution then maybe we need to look at removing vehicles from town centres completely.
I would have thought a pedestrian crossing next to a roundabout would be no less safe than pedestrians crossing at a set of lights with the potential for turning vehicles.
These roundabouts seem to work in Vision Zero countries.
Saying that vehicles are travelling too fast to yield is a description of the situation. It’s not blame. I’m not sure why you think it is, Richard. I thought you were in favour of changes to the built environment that support driving at appropriate speeds.
Providing crossings on desire lines so that pedestrians don’t have to weigh up delay vs danger is a key part of VZ. So is designing the whole system of the built environment and influencing the driving culture (through regulation, education and enforcement) to encourage safe speeds and safe driving attitudes.
Walking is the “fundamental unit of moving”, and needs to be supported with up-to-date and evidence-based design. Fences, barriers, and requiring pedestrians to walk a long way out of their way in a town centre is not part of good design or of Vision Zero.
Agree about the name Vision Zero, miffy. But it’s not a biggie.
“These roundabouts seem to work in Vision Zero countries.”
How do you quantify “seem to work”. Is this based on crash data or simply the fact that they exist?
I’ve seen some examples of these in Denmark, however they take up about 4 times the land area and carry only a fraction of the traffic. Add to that the driving culture may be very different with stopping as you leave a roundabout being a potentially very common feature and hence a natural expectation.
In terms of “If fencing pedestrians off in town centres is the only truly safe solution”.
While it is true that physical separation is the safest of safe solutions, hence why people like fully separated cycle paths and footpaths, you can design roundabouts and crossing that are safe system compliant.
In my view most of the crossings on this roundabout are set back about the right distance, one of them is too far away and a couple of others are too close. However anyone who has a sense of personal safety would find the 10-20m detour perfectly fine.
We do try to take into account those with a limited sense of personal safety but you need to be careful to not attract to many people into a dangerous spot. I’m not a big fan of fences myself, but if pedestrian safety is the primary goal they are very effective.
“Saying that vehicles are travelling too fast to yield is a description of the situation. It’s not blame.”
Sorry Heidi, but your blaming drivers again. If a roundabout is designed so poorly it gives a drivers traveling at 20km/h about 0.1s to react and stop to a pedestrian crossing the road is not at all safe no matter how much you blame the driver.
You blaming the driver is no different to the driver blaming the pedestrian who decided to ignore the crossing and take a shortcut.
Blaming either of these people is not going to save anyone’s lives.
It is blame, and rightfully so. This is a town centre with potentially lots of foot traffic — deal with it.
If you look closely at that image from the Transport Design Manual you’ll notice that there is some setback on those crossings. Probably to allow some reaction time, and also to allow at least one car wait at that crossing without blocking the roundabout.
If you look closely at the proposed plan, you’ll see that the zebra crossing the furthest away from the roundabout is on an inbound leg.
Roeland, you can blame people all you like however its not going to bring someone back to life or prevent further incidents. A Safe System assumes people will make mistakes and therefore blaming people for making mistakes is not part of the equation.
The idea of having the crossing located one car length from the roundabout is purely based on providing space for a vehicle to spot clear of the roundabout. If you want to focus on safety and allow a vehicle a good chance of seeing a pedestrian or cyclist crossing then a 20m setback would be more ideal.
Well this is a bit comparable to bringing a rifle and a box to a park for some target practice, and then accidentally hurting or killing someone. I don’t think the response will be to build fences to keep all those pesky people out of your way.
You can make any sort of system fail by assuming some people involved will ignore rules or common sense.
In case of roundabout designs like this: does it mean you will have to slow down to under 30 km/h on that roundabout? Yes. Sorry.
If you look closely at the proposed plan, you’ll see that the zebra crossing the furthest away from the roundabout is on an inbound leg.
I assume the main reason (justification?) for this is to maximize vehicle through-put of the one approach road that is double-laned outside the immediate approach to the intersection. Lack of queuing space between the crossing and the intersection does on occasion reduce through-put from Campbell Rd in my experience (I’m nearly always going CampbellMt Albert when I use the intersection).
It would be useful to know where people using the Mt Albert Rd crossing are going, I assume a fair number are using the Mall (i.e. mainly away from the intersection). I assume no such survey of existing usage has been done?
I don’t think its anything like that. If you are wanting to stay talking about guns its like having a little shooting range where all the guns have a lethal range of 20m, and then some people who really hate guns deciding they want their 500m long cycle way to go directly through the middle of this 20m lethal range zone rather than simply going either side.
But to improve safety they will campaign to have the guns lethal range reduced from 20m to 19m and for the shooters to now be blindfolded so they can’t see what they’re shooting at.
Richard – it was just observation, no data, my point was more these are being used in countries with a vision zero approach.
An extra bit of walking for you and I isn’t huge but for some it can mean the difference between going to the shops and staying at home.
As far as I’m concerned if capacity at this intersection has to be reduced to make it a better amenity for locals then so be it. There is no reason for town centres to be vehicle thoroughfares.
Incidentally I think removing Campbell Rd and putting in traffic lights is the best option.
Well scratch that example, and let’s use something that is often observed : texting while driving.
Exactly the same answer. We should not fence off streets to solve that problem.
Jezza, I highly doubt somebody who is mobility impaired would rather risk their life than travel an extra 20m or so.
It is sort of interesting how its seems perfectly fine to disrupt thousands of people and risk the lives or hundreds while discouraging the trips from hundreds of others just so that a handful of people who claim a 20m detour is too far can have their way. It all seems very selfish.
But yes I agree, the main issue where is that we have multiple arterial roads going through the middle of a town centre. The ideal solution would probably be to remove that through traffic completely, however as we know any projects to remove through traffic are attacked with passionate opposition.
If a designer faces a choice of fencing something or not fencing then under Vision Zero they will always fence because it is always possible to imagine someone being hurt if the fence isn’t there. Expect fences down the middle of highways, beside footpaths, either side of light rail tracks on Dominion Road, practically everywhere a fence might fit. If you can imagine a problem then you have to provide a prevention, that is Vision Zero.
So your ideal solution to solve the safety issues of “texting while driving” is to reduce the posted speed limit and encourage pedestrians to walk in the middle of the road?
From a vision zero perspective I think a better solution would be to have telcos to block the transmitting function of phones that are obviously travelling along a road.
Richard – if the crossing is 20m from the roundabout then the detour is 40m, if they have do this across two roads it is 80m. I don’t think mobility impaired people will risk their lives, but they may be more likely to just stay at home.
I don’t think anything that makes a local town centre easier to use for locals is selfish. If anything it is selfish expecting to be able to drive a car through the middle of a town centre with minimal disruption.
Can you elaborate on the hundreds of lives that are put at risk as a result of prioritising pedestrian movements?
“Can you elaborate on the hundreds of lives that are put at risk as a result of prioritising pedestrian movements?”
My assumption was that in a town centre like this, hundreds of pedestrians would use those crossings every day and hence if you move it into a more dangerous location because a small fraction of people are too perceive crossing the road safely as being too inconvenient you are putting all those other people who were happy to cross the road safely now at risk.
In terms of the detour distance you need to look at things on a larger scale. If you place the crossing 20m rather than 5m from the crossing exit as a worst case you increase the journey length by about 40m which when your total journey is some 400m is hardly an issue. It really is selfish to expect all of society to bend over backwards and risk their lives so that someone can have a 10% shorter walk.
Ah, I see where you are coming from. Although given those existing crossings are not perfectly safe I’m not sure whether 100s of lives are suddenly at risk as a result of a change.
The larger scale argument applies just as equally to vehicle trips, a delay due to reduced capacity at the intersection will probably add less than 10 % to most vehicle trips.
but, but, the car is the king, we must not delay the car!
Jezza, moving the crossing closer to the roundabout does little to making driving take longer, assuming things are operating as normal. The only difference it makes is making it much more dangerous for pedestrians and/or cyclists to cross the road.
So yes I guess cars will get delayed if there is an increase in fatal or serious crashes, however its a little strange to complain about cars being “given priority” because less pedestrians are getting hit.
miffy, not quite sure about your humour and tone there, so I’ll just say, fences aren’t safer. They can trap people on the wrong side. The ‘antiquated’ description is apt. VZ has already looked at fences, and decided they are rarely useful.
A classic one is in Pt Chevalier, where to cross the unsafe slip lane from GNR into Pt Chev Rd in heavy traffic, the safest time to do so is when there is a car there, with the driver waiting for a break in the traffic to turn. The presence of the car is about the only thing that’ll slow the traffic coming up GNR; drivers certainly rarely notice pedestrians and next to never offer to stop to let them over. But to cross behind a waiting car puts you in a direct line for a fence, trapping you on the road. You don’t necessarily notice it as the car obscures it from your position on the island.
An adult can slip between fence and car to find the gap onto the footpath. But anyone with a child will feel unsafe, and walking a bike or a pushchair it’s very dangerous as you can’t get through. You’re stuck on the road.
The problem isn’t unique to this situation. It is inherent to fences and barriers, because no engineer can foresee all the situations that might put road users in particular spots – picking up something that dropped from a car, or blew out of a child’s hand, or doing something that seemed logical when backed up traffic obscured the road markings, etc.
Richard, pedestrians get hit if you put the crossing away from their desire line or if you make them wait too long at a traffic signal. That’s just something you’ll have to accept because that’s what the global data shows. The decisions people make may not be something that you find logical, but that is irrelevant. We try to understand how people think to explain the phenomena, and to encourage responsible behaviour through education, but not to design according to how we think people should behave. That’s what designing to ensure ‘mistakes’ don’t cost a life is all about.
Equity in transport is important. People walking are already using the slowest mode. All progressive transport plans are devised to acknowledge this, and to appreciate how much extra time all the ‘little detours’ add up to, and try to provide the most direct route for people on foot.
Paraphrasing to save space.
“pedestrians get hit if you put the crossing away … that’s what the global data shows.”
You would need to use super hero levels of data cherry picking and taking things out of context to make a claim that “global data” shows 20m detours cause pedestrians to get hit.
“We try to understand how people think to explain the phenomena, and to encourage responsible behaviour through education, but not to design according to how we think people should behave. That’s what designing to ensure ‘mistakes’ don’t cost a life is all about.”
Its interesting how you say one thing but then practice the complete opposite. We all know that people like to take the shortest route, and for those of us that drive know when coming to a roundabout your primary focus is traffic coming from your left. However rather than encouraging “responsible behavior” you are actively encouraging dangerous behavior. And rather than “not to design according to how we think people should behave” you are promoting designs based on how you think people should behave. And to top it off you say its about “designing to ensure ‘mistakes’ don’t cost a life” but you’re actually promoting designs that actively encourage mistakes that do cost lives.
I think re crossings closer to the intersection idea is if they are *properly raised and stand out more visually* it will make all the difference to slowing the traffic down. People are thinking in terms of the current flat versions. Also, can’t compare to the Panmure one (prior to works that is) it is much bigger and faster, believe me.
Except it’s not a town centre.
This was a cross-roads (well more like a star shape) that eventually had some shops built adjacent to it. The town centre is north of the roundabout on Manukau Rd. South of the roundabout is a burger place, an old KFC and an antiques shop that’s about it. The roads and roundabout just happen to pass close to the town centre. This isn’t the CBD or Mission Bay, or Browns Bay, or Otahuhu, Dominion Rd etc it needs a solution to an unsafe intersection on 4 if not 5 busy/arterial roads!
Since space for a safe sized roundabout doesn’t exist (and even then it’s still not the safest with 5 tight roads) the only reasonable solution is to replace it with a signalised intersection. This would give pedestrians and cyclists the safety they need, would allow buses (and future LRT) to easily use the intersection, while still providing access to arterial roads.
It’s probably not a “proper town centre” due to the car centric roundabout, everyone is staying away somewhat.
I don’t think we really want signalising which would add to the clutter, make peds wait & wait at the beg buttons or ignore them if they have to wait to long. This is a cruddy PT transfer location for the 66 & 30 bus particularly, so needs better walkability. Signalising will also likely make it worse for bikes than a proper slow down treatment.
There is room, it can be made more efficient by simplifying. ie no Campbell Rd connection, and or Nicholas Lee’s idea (see below a couple of hours ago comment).
@miffy The purpose of Vision Zero is to prevent deaths. Not to prevent crashes.
From what I understand Vision Zero accepts that crashes happen. People make choices. Sometimes with counter-logic. Accidents happen.
Thus we should design the road space to accept this. Generally this is via separation (between vehicles) or speed reduction.
Forcing traffic to go slower through the roundabout is good in this context. Increasing traffic flow/speed in an area where there are people is a conflict with this philosophy.
Discussion with Connected communities was had around suggestions to reduce all legs to single lane approaches and move ped crossings forward but they refused as
they didn’t want to reduce the roads to one lane approach and also didn’t want the Zebra moved forward, even when the two lane approach is dangerous and very short.
They appear more interested in efficiency than community use and safety at this point in their start up cycle, this could be a lack of understanding about their actual roles. Or it could be a lack of skill/traditional thinking and values by the many consultants that make up the team.
Recommendations to reduce the roundabout to single lane and radically increase the pedestrian and cycle amenity also fell on deaf ears.
It’s not that designs like this are not challenged but that people do not actually listen to good advice, it’s an uphill battle to make anyone think about design beyond pure traffic needs.
The pedestrian crossings should not be moved closer unless the intersections are signalized. The problem is that the entrances are so close together, you have to keep watching an entrance over your shoulder and two others to make sure cars have not entered the round about since it was originally safe to go. You also have vehicles on your left trying to jump into the gap. Given the the attitude seems to be the quick or the dead vehicles can move very quickly into your path. Having negotiated this you look forward to find a pedestrian crossing. This also used to be a problem at Panmure before the crossings were moved. Vision zero stresses good design to remove risk. Either signalize if you want the crossing at the intersection or leave them where they are.
“you have to keep watching an entrance over your shoulder and two others”
I don’t think that is true even on small roundabouts. If someone coming from your right is approaching particularly fast, he may have to brake but so be it.
(if you can’t count on that, that is a big problem, and one you cannot solve with any infrastructure)
If someone coming from the opposite direction is turning right, if he doesn’t enter before you he would have to try really hard to actually hit you.
Keep in mind people tend to not continue on collision course with other cars.
Boris – care to elaborate any further? I’ve heard different to you regarding connected communities , how would what you’ve proposed accommodate any form of bus priority? What about cycling infrastructure?
Just going to leave this up there for those commentators that think you “can’t” reduce traffic.
This is the consequence of that attitude, well done people, so proud.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/17/air-pollution-particles-found-on-foetal-side-of-placentas-study
Traffic lights and closing Campbell Rd to cars would improve safety, but the hostility of Royal Oak to non-drivers is entrenched and it would almost need a concerted town centre plan and overhaul to make a meaningful difference.
To me a viable shorter term option would be to try to string a wider radius pedestrian route around the intersection. The northeast corner currently has adequate footpath. The positioning of the crossings on the south and east sides creates an implied route through private car parks (nobody realistically walks a zigzag past the Barfoots and Ollies frontages). The north and west sides are more built up and harder to solve, but there are vehicle accessways that could serve. If this circuit could be formalised, Royal Oak would have its own version of the Onehunga laneways plan.
Zebra crossings that force you to walk 60 to 80 metres out of your way just to cross the intersection. What a disgrace.
‘Zebra crossings right at the roundabout are unsafe.’ But exiting a roundabout is like any left turn. Would you say that zebra crossings should not be allowed at any intersection where they might force a left-turning vehicle to yield to a pedestrian? That would virtually mean no zebra crossings at any intersections at all.
For a roundabout design that properly respects pedestrian desire lines, see for example corner van zuylen van nijeveltstraat and wiegmanweg, Wassenaar, Netherlands (sorry, don’t know how to link to google maps). Maybe we should ask the Dutch whether they’re happy with the safety outcomes of this design. It’s not about pushing the pedestrians out of the way; it’s about making the cars slow down.
Thanks, Julian. I looked that up. Here’s the link: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Van+Zuylen+van+Nijeveltstraat,+Wassenaar,+Netherlands/@52.1428926,4.4008246,145m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x47c5b87a5531ee4d:0x2453d614828b1424!8m2!3d52.1437757!4d4.3993452
Further: pedestrian desire lines are really fussy things. People are strongly motivated to minimise walk distance. They will beat a path straight over the raised lawn that blocks the direct route across the town square.
So it’s really not good enough to say, ‘I’m sure most people don’t mind waking an extra X metres to a safer crossing [which has been pushed away from its rational location for the convenience of motorists]’ . They do mind. Some will cross at the rational but now unprotected location. That’s an unsafe outcome that you have to set against the supposedly safer outcome of moving the crossing away.
So whether the inconvenient but supposedly safer crossing is *actually* safer, after accounting for this non-cooperative behaviour, is something you would need to research case by case.
“I’m sure most people don’t mind waking an extra X metres to a safer crossing [which has been pushed away from its rational location for the convenience of motorists”
When was a crossing ever moved away “for the convenience of motorists”. From a motorists perspective the only “convenience” aspect from putting a crossing in a safe location is that they are less likely to kill a pedestrian. If killing pedestrians is an “inconvenience” you think motorists should incur you’re defiantly not on the vision zero boat.
For this particular roundabout, I would agree the crossing to on Mount Albert Rd is too far away, the on on Maunukau Rd (north) could be 5m closer, the one on Mt Smart Rd is too close, the Campell Rd one would be better were the vehicle crossing is and the one on Maukau Rd (south) seems about right.
By ‘for the convenience of motorists’ I mean that the design prioritises maintaining traffic speed more highly than accommodating pedestrian desire lines.
” I mean that the design prioritises maintaining traffic speed more highly than accommodating pedestrian desire lines.”
It doesn’t however. The users who have the maximum priority are pedestrians as they aren’t required to give-way anybody and every other mode is required to give way to them.
If this was a normal roundabout with one lane approaches the pedestrian crossing would be closer to the roundabout however the pedestrians would be required to give-way to road traffic.
So really its the opposite. Pedestrian desire lines have been sacrificed to give pedestrians priority.
If you wanted to prioritise the desire lines you would make the thing signal controlled, however due to the multiple legs you would end up having something like 2min cycle times.
The other problem is that the roundabout and Auckland roads are a hostile environment. People die on this roundabout and other crossings in Auckland.
Just because there is a crossing doesn’t mean it is safe. People will choose to take a short route because they may have a perception that this is safer.
Here is an example from De Bilt.
https://twitter.com/stateless/status/1155964092315607041
My first suggestion would be to transit filter Manukau Road at this spot
https://imgur.com/a/0wgpVed
Push the traffic to Pah Road. Both car parks can still be accessed for the Mall.
Good idea.
Yes, that’s the sort of solution required. Best would be a comprehensive low-traffic neighbourhood design, involving several filters. Onehunga needs something major to stop the trucks racing through the back streets. Knock-on effects for reducing congestion throughout the city would be pretty popular once people understand how it works.
“Onehunga needs something major to stop the trucks racing through the back streets.”
I understand that was one of the main objectives of the “East West Link”, as well as coastal restoration and and the removal of contaminated land. However people were all up in arms in favor of keeping trucks on local roads.
That point aside however, have you got any examples yet of “low traffic neighborhoods that “reduce congestion throughout the city”. I checked the link you gave yesterday but it didn’t have any.
Let’s not go there.
1. The current EWL design only brings four additional lanes of traffic into Onehunga.
2. No change to the outgoing lanes onto SH20.
3. More traffic and less throughput = more traffic on Onehunga residential streets.
Building a motorway on the coastline is also stupid. It not create restoration. Only more concrete for cars.
That all comes down to how you design it.
In my design I removed both Neilson and Onehunga Mall as motorway connections, which if you look at the road network in the area would have removed a large portion of through traffic from the entire area including the Royal Oak roundabout. Unfortunately when it comes to these things very few people really care about getting the best outcome but rather either hate roads and want them all removed (closed to traffic) or are the polar opposite and want direct ramps to every house in the city.
In regards to the coastline, not too sure if you’ve been to the area but 100% of the coastline is man made and largely made of contaminated fill, hence the reason why there are various signs warning you of toxic material in the area.
Although I would agree that in the majority of cases building a 4-lane road is not a scenic enhancement, in that particular location the project was a significant improvement. It was also likely one of the main reasons for the huge cost of the project.
I haven’t see your design.
My personal opinion is that the best option for EWL is mode shift.
How matter how it is designed it simply adds capacity for more vehicles.
At this point in time, NZ’s transport policy needs to be focused on climate change, mode shift and road safety.
So given eastwest link was largely focused on freight movement how do you propose they get some mode shift going? Load shipping containers on to the back of bicycles or make it so it takes 2 days to ship goods by train from one manufacture to the other only to still use trucks at either end of the trip?
As I noted above, when done right a project like the EastWest link can provide everything you want, less traffic on local roads, safer local roads, improved provision for active modes, reduced CO2 emissions, cleaner waterways.
Unfortunately, many people can’t see the wood for the trees and are so transfixed to stopping anything that improves road transport that would prefer to save 50% of the cost to loose 90% of the benefits.
Freight improvements can be achieved with modest truck & transit only lanes. Some minor intersection upgrades on the SH1, main sections of Church & Neilson routes. ie something like original option A Or maybe upgrade to SH1 south with option B.
1.
No trucks will have used the new road. If you seen the NZTA design it had a trench and fly over. So trucks would drop 1 story, rise 3 stories, then drop back down again.
So ALL the trucks would stay on Neilson Street.
2.
Mode shift is about moving the dial down on the 860 vehicles per 1000 people in NZ. (Yes, more vehicles than drivers.)
Neilson St is mostly backed up in the PM peak due to the tail at Onehunga Mall. This is also a result of the limited input capability at this junction onto SH20.
Removing cars via mode shift, means more road space and intersection capacity for trucks.
Very simple logic.
“Freight improvements can be achieved with modest truck & transit only lanes.”
Yes that is what I was referring to when I said you could save 50% of the cost by removing 90% of the benefits. Seems a rather bad deal to me however.
@Nicholas Lee, was that reply to me?
Which trench/fly over? Not their chosen option just limited upgrade versions A/B.
I’m not too keen on extra roads but a freight route directly south from Church would be nice in the future perhaps short of moving the depots to Wiri.
Anyway I agree main way would be mode shift. The lowering of the Neilson St Bridge T2/Truck etc lanes seems to have helped the heavy trucks move off quicker or helped at peaks. Outside of peak it seems to flow all pretty good anyway, if there is not a motorway snarl up.
“No trucks will have used the new road.”
I can only assume you were trying to make a joke here, next you will be telling me trucks avoid the waterview tunnel and stick to local roads to avoid the grades.
“Removing cars via mode shift, means more road space and intersection capacity for trucks.
Very simple logic.”
Unfortunately, as Auckland has demonstrated. The only way you can really get mode shift away from cars is to make driving next to impossible. If you look at the various projects that have been built in Auckland over the years, the only ones that have resulted in less congestion have been the SH18 motorway and the Waterview Connection. When it comes to the most effective projects in encouraging mode shift however these have been ones that have increased congestion significantly. So your “Very simple logic” simply doesn’t work, as to get your mode shift you need to create more congestion and hence less space for trucks.
Actually both the Northern Busway and the reopened Onehunga Train line both show that mode shift happens when you provide the alternatives.
The number of vehicles travelling into the city center has been static. All the extra people crossing the bridge are in PT.
Before 2011 there was no Onehunga line. Now it’s 3000+ commuters per day? How many cars is that off the roads?
Waterview has not resulted in less congestion. We have congestion in Onehunga due to Waterview. Drivers who previously may have taken the SH1 route via town and now driving thru Onehunga for SH20 to the NW.
Building only roads encourages only cars.
Transport is not demand lead, it is supply lead. What you supply is what creates demand.
@Grant I mean the current EWL design at the Onehunga port. Go have a look at it. Insane.
“Actually both the Northern Busway and the reopened Onehunga Train line both show that mode shift happens when you provide the alternatives.”
Are you under the impression the northern and southerns motorway has had zero congestion and has been free flowing for the past 20 years and that the CBD has heaps of free parking all over the show.
Obviously the answer to the above is no. The opening of the busway didn’t result in the northern motorway suddenly becoming free flowing and neither has the opening of the Onehunga resulted the street of Onehunga becoming empty and free of traffic. Rather congestion in both areas has only got worse over the years.
Also yes, the Waterview Connection has resulted in less congestion. However has can be expected certain places will come out on the bad side of the equation.
“Building only roads encourages only cars.”
I assume you referring to roads that ban buses and have no walking and cycling facilities. Who’s proposing those?
Ultimate transport is about moving people and goods. Not about moving vehicles.
Your points really just support my points. So not much more for me to say.
“Ultimate transport is about moving people and goods. Not about moving vehicles.”
Who or what is this meant to be in reference to?
“So your “Very simple logic” simply doesn’t work, as to get your mode shift you need to create more congestion and hence less space for trucks.”
There is such a thing as truck only lanes. We need the alternative to simple general traffic lanes, what you feed grows. Much of what has been done so far with roads in Auckland is just shift congestion from one area to another all the while population & traffic is growing in itself.
A lot of it simply comes down to modes with their own right of way:
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/congestion-free-network-2/
Not too sure how closely you’ve looked at the “congestion free network”, but other than the existing railways lines most of the “congestion free” network actually shared the existing road space and is effected by congestion. The Dominion Rd light rail for instance is planned to share the road with general traffic for the majority of its route.
But yes on that note, some of my concepts for the EWL were to make it a freight only route, however just like throwing some paint on the round doesn’t make perfect cycleway, throwing some paint on the ground doesn’t make for very the best priority facilities. And again, if you aren’t trying to make mass congestion at the same time these things prove to be rather expensive as we have almost zero space to work with.
It was also found with the EWL that its main users were commuters who are currently filtering through the local street and places like Royal Oak. So if people were in favor of diverting traffic away from local roads to making them quieter, safer and more pleasant they would be in favor of something like the EWL. However as we know, when the mission is to be anti-car you can’t achieve allow for such a thing to happen, no matter the costs.
Richard – my only issue with the EWL link was the sheer cost, tying up transport funds that could be spent elsewhere.
Neilson and and the eastern end of Church Street of course already provide a bypass of residential areas.
I was expecting you to come back and say that it’s not all fully grade separated. I’ve looked at it very closely. It doesn’t have to be necessarily for every part of every line. There will be budgets and constraints where pragmatic solutions maybe needed.
As for the East West link proposed, it was a monster. You have to ask what are we really trying to achieve. Solving traffic & growing Auckland freight issues related to Onehunga without destroying (& hopefully improving) it’s urban & natural environment will be tricky.
“Richard – my only issue with the EWL link was the sheer cost,”
I agree Jezza, personally I didn’t think the solution was all that great but I can see the merits in what it did and what it allowed.
Maybe when it comes back an improved version will be made.
“It was also found with the EWL that its main users were commuters who are currently filtering through the local street and places like Royal Oak”
Something the EWL clearly would not solve. In fact it would make it worse.
Richard – agree. I think there is about $600 – 800 million still allocated to the project, so maybe grade separating the Great South Rd and Beasley Ave intersections and untangle the connections to the SW motorway.
“There will be budgets and constraints”
Yes and that’s where the issue is. For example there was a claim a busway was going to be built from the CBD to Westgate for the low cost of $200 million, in reality its an almost unconsentable alignment that would cost more in the range of $2-4 billion.
Similar to the Dominion Rd light rail which due to the narrow road requires the general traffic lane to run on-top of the tram line at every stop. And given the benefits for the project are based on monster 90m long trams we can expect the stop to be over 100m in length and at something like 800m centres. Which once you take account of intersections you can expect the tram line to be filled with cars.
“As for the East West link proposed, it was a monster. You have to ask what are we really trying to achieve. Solving traffic & growing Auckland freight issues related to Onehunga without destroying (& hopefully improving) it’s urban & natural environment will be tricky.”
That’s the thing, even though I wasn’t sold on the design it improved the “urban & natural environment “. For those few people who like to go for strolls through contaminated land next to rubbish dumps container yards I guess they my be upset, but for most normal folk it wouldn’t have resulted in a significant improvement.
“Something the EWL clearly would not solve. In fact it would make it worse.”
And this pearl of wisdom is based on what?
“I think there is about $600 – 800 million still allocated to the project”
My concern is that they will do some halfway house thing that will make next to no difference but preclude something better being done in the future.
Richard,
It’s very clear that the existing consented design ONLY adds four lanes of traffic into Onehunga. No capacity increase at the ramps. There is no logically way this design reduces the exiting cesspit of traffic in Onehunga.
In fact, it is also very clear that Waterview has only added traffic to Onehunga. The EWL would do that same thing.
Make it easy for traffic to arrive in Onehunga, but hard for it to transit thru Onehunga.
That’s notwithstanding the objections I made above regarding the design of the trench/flyover vs some a fanasty that trucks will then not be on Neilson St anymore.
Regarding the budget. My understanding is that it doesn’t exist. Budget in name only. Not allocated or approved.
Just an option number on the PBC.
Given the current transport budget is overallocated – without much work on big PT projects – you wonder how money for the EWL was meant to be found. Fuel taxes maybe?
“It’s very clear that the existing consented design ONLY adds four lanes of traffic into Onehunga. No capacity increase at the ramps. There is no logically way this design reduces the exiting cesspit of traffic in Onehunga.”
Although the project never went through a tender phase and so we don’t know what form it was going to actually take, it quite clearly would have reduced traffic through Onehunga. As noted above there is a large east-west movement of commuters moving through this area who would have then taken the new route, this diversion of traffic would have allowed things like the Royal Oak roundbaout to be reduced to one lane with no notable impacts on traffic.
“In fact, it is also very clear that Waterview has only added traffic to Onehunga. The EWL would do that same thing.”
It’s not clear that the Waterview Connection has added a single additional vehicle to Onehunga, it is certainly likely some of the existing traffic that used to come down SH1 is now coming down SH20 however this is the same traffic.
“Make it easy for traffic to arrive in Onehunga, but hard for it to transit thru Onehunga.”
The work that was done on SH20 by Onehunga was done as enabling works for the EWL, given the EWL was canceled you end up getting the effects you talk about. Hence the issue with not doing things properly.
“That’s notwithstanding the objections I made above regarding the design of the trench/flyover vs some a fanasty that trucks will then not be on Neilson St anymore.”
This is the same comedic objection that suggests trucks don’t use the Waterview Tunnel that has similar if not steeper grades?
I’ve made a proposal about Onehunga residential streets as a start.
https://twitter.com/stateless/status/1173899667706245120
Royal Oak roundabout is a bit different, since it’s on several arterial routes. I think that Manukau Road is a redundant arterial road in the context of the overall network in/thru Royal Oak. So easily filtered.
I;d consider putting a transit hub at the Royal Cuisine Takeaways location. Combined with the space at this end of Manukau Road it could work as a transit hub.
Good ideas there. It would certainly be the biggest innovating streets project. I think more appropriate would be having it driven from AT themselves rather than leaving it up to the community. But the question is how to even start. While AT employs safety, active mode, modeshift, public transport staff who understand induced traffic and traffic evaporation, those few who hold the veto power prevent this sort of approach.
Yes the more I think about it, seems the main general traffic route is Mt Albert – Mt Smart but Manukau Rd very important for PT from the Onehunga Hub. If the east to west route through the roundabout is strengthened then all the filtering though Grey St should lessen anyway. I note Mt Smart & May’s backs up quite early peak afternoon sometimes heading west, so perhaps Google is sending some down onto Grey.
Seems Heidi & you drew short straws when the Waterview Connection was complete, being at the two ends.
Waterview doesn’t connect directly into Pt Chev. Which is probably a good thing. The closest west bound exit is St Lukes Road.
All the EW streets in Onehunga backup. Grey, Arthur and Princes. Plus of course Church and Neilson St.
These streets also see rat running at speed. So not all about avoiding congestion. Some of it is about avoiding intersections.
Pt Chev seems to have been affected by Waterview though as people rat run to avoid the extra traffic near the motorway/on-off ramps in the area ie Great North Rd etc
Is that Waterview? Or just the fact we have too many cars?
Both I would guess, but Heidi has posted in the past about increased traffic soon after it opened. Meola Rd etc. Induced demand etc.
The SH20 – SH16 circuitous route into town has taken traffic from the SH1 route, as intended, with the result that the SH16 section is now chockablock, as it already had all the traffic from the W and NW to carry. So some cars from GNR that would’ve hopped on SH16 at Waterview don’t do so any more, and some drivers from the NW hop off the motorway and continue on the local roads. Basically Google gives the directions for the fastest way to go, and so they use Meola Rd, Motions Rd, GNR etc. All those parallel routes that the SH16 was supposed to take the traffic off when it was originally built.
“increased traffic soon after it opened. Meola Rd etc. Induced demand etc”
Just been having a little look at the traffic volumes and its hard to find much evidence that Waterview has caused increased traffic or congestion through Westmere or Ponsonby.
Both the SH16 eastbound off-ramp to Great North Rd and the SH1 Northbound on-ramp from Currant St show no statistical change since Waterview opened. SH16 to SH1N ramp has a notable increase which was expected and easy to observe. The eastbound St Lukes off-ramp seen a huge amount of growth, however it is matched by an equally huge reduction on the westbound off-ramp (something expected but goes against the laws of induced demand).
Unfortunately AT seems to either not take vehicle counts or only conducts them at 10 year intervals and so I can tell from what changes there have been on local roads.
So based on the data it seems Waterview had nothing to do with the perceived increase in congestion or traffic. Something else that has happened in the area however is that it has been flooded with speed bumps and the capacity of some roads have been reduced. To it seems where the 6-lanes of motorway didn’t increase congestion, potentially the “low traffic neighborhood” measures have increased congestion on some roads.
“So some cars from GNR that would’ve hopped on SH16 at Waterview don’t do so any more”
Just checked that ramp as well, its seen a drop of about 1000 vehicles day using it, similar to the west facing ramp that is seeing about 2000 less vehicles, and appears to be due to these people now getting on at Maioro St.
If Waterview leads to a redistribution of network traffic. Then it would cause localised congestion.
“Both the SH16 eastbound off-ramp to Great North Rd and the SH1 Northbound on-ramp from Currant St show no statistical change since Waterview opened.”
Ramp capacity probably hasn’t changed. If the previous traffic sources can now not access the ramps easily. Then they will shift to alternative routes.
Total network performance is about the size of links. It’s about the capacity of nodes to manage these links. Now Auckland is past a certain size, the main roads in the city will ALWAYS be congested.
The metric of success is not how we reduce congestion. It’s how we build the transport network to increase it’s capacity to move people and goods.
… and how we improve the air quality, reduce the noise and make it liveable again so people can be sociable, active and healthy.
“It’s how we build the transport network to increase it’s capacity to move people and goods.”
I don’t think that’s the only measure, if it was Waiheke island would be more populous than the North Shore because a couple of big boats would be all we need. in reality there is a range of measures that make a good transport network.
FOI Request (see fyi.org.nz)
From: David Harton
September 30, 2019
Dear Auckland Transport,
I refer to the project to upgrade the Royal Oak Roundabout.
Please provide the comments by the walking and cycling subject experts made when reviewing the conceptual design of this roundabout. This refers to the design circulated within AT for comments to be incorporated into the design which was published for consultation recently.
If these experts were not consulted please explain why.
If these comments were not incorporated into the design please explain why.
Thanks a lot.
Yours faithfully,
Dave Harton
Note: the death on the Mt Albert crossing (which is not being upgraded), clearly shows that pushing the crossing away from the roundabout does not help safety.
Hi all, have received the FOI 4 weeks late, and am not impressed:
I am very unhappy with the response:
– There is missing information (A report regarding cycling safety is missing)
– There are inconsistencies, the official response states that cycling safety will come with connected journeys, whereas there is a statement that no cycleways are planned
– Apart from the missing report cycling is not mentioned once in the response. I did a text search in all documents and NOTHING
I will add this all to my existing complaint to the ombudsman
More details at https://fyi.org.nz/request/11327-royal-oak-roundabout-walking-and-cycling#followup