Due on Monday https://www.ccc.govt.nz/the-council/consultations-and-submissions/haveyoursay/show/257
The Northern Arterial Extension is set to increase cars on Cranford St from 20,000 a day to 40,000+. The neigbhourhoods trashed in support of urban sprawl and climate change.
This is a non consultation submission process. Yes, strange and not fully explained. Suffice to say it is another chance to let Council know that you would prefer actual safe well connected and expandable cycle infrastructure over more roads for cars.
Preface
Spokes submission of June 2018 on this project opened with this quote “The process is about mitigating impacts, not optimizing outcomes”. This remains the corrupt foundation driving the response to the downstream impacts of the northern arterial extension.
Feedback from consultations on this project has been clear: people, not cars; do not sever and destroy community; safety, particularly for people walking, biking to shop, to school and to visit. Neighbourhood amenity with greenery, not gridlock, smog, noise and intimidating traffic.
Quoting from your webpage “With several local shopping areas, schools and parks in the area, it is important to the community that access to these places is retained and, if possible, improved.” The need is noted, access, not defined, to be retained, and “if possible, improved.” The message is clear; the community spoke loudly enough to be heard, so a response was required. Change commensurate with the response will not be forthcoming “These projects are updated below, but we are not seeking feedback on them.”. Thank you for being transparent.
Council sounds like a broken record and the community response the neighbours screaming in vain to make it stop.
Comments
The original plan offered business as usual 20th century traffic design. This iteration makes tentative steps to enter the 21st century. It still fails to recognize that moving the problem of too many cars down to Bealey Ave is not an answer. Providing infrastructure for public and active transport over predominantly single occupancy vehicles remains far too compromised. Stop building on the last government’s past mistakes, urban sprawl supported by ever widening highways. Reward those who choose to live close in, and who will be paying for this work.
This plan needs to go back for redrafting. It needs to support Council’s emphasis and stated goals on both meeting the needs of ‘interested but concerned cyclists’ and honouring the climate crisis declaration.
At 20,000+ cars a day we are already at gridlock during rush hours, with projections of 40,000+ what is planned will fail. Getting people onto public and active transport is the only way to relieve congestion which will not feed in to single occupancy vehicle madness. Those people who must drive benefit. In turn air quality; public health and community amenity are all improved with the added benefit of lasting reductions to capital and maintenance costs for roading infrastructure.
But we are offered little with this latest round of rehashed band aids on transport cancer. The need for dedicated bus lanes is neglected in favour of rush hour HOV lanes. Apparently it is too hard to police bus lanes. It is far easier to police bus only lanes over trying to count passengers in cars in HOV lanes. It is noted that HOV lanes are extensions of those found on the northern arterial. The cancer of bad planning is too aggressive to thwart.
The park and ride facilities and express bus service are appreciated. May ECan actually join in the planning and funding for both initiatives. CCC should investigate if in the long term it may be better value for money to provide funding for remote park and ride lots than to destroy the impacted communities with the proposed alterations.
Various means to make car commuters pay need exploration; some are obvious and have been submitted previously. Charge for all day parking in the CBD out to the 4 avenues is one.
The needs of all road users and consultation on those needs should have been ongoing with the planning and construction of the northern arterial extension. Inadequate and unsafe painted lanes and shared space are now proposed where they do not overly intrude.
Painted cycle lanes, too often narrow, hard up against on street parking, interrupted by driveways and/or shared with pedestrians do not attract new cyclists.
Whether cycle lanes are 1.6m or 1.8m or shared paths 2-3m wide no room is allowed for expansion. As designed the infrastructure is self-limiting. We should be long past prioritizing on street parking over road safety. This iteration increases speeds on the “Green ways” to 40km/h, again favouring cars over people. Called for education and enforcement to give the infrastructure a chance at saving lives is not offered.
Where traffic calming is applied it should allow people on bicycles to circumvent it. Chicanes too often become games of chicken for motorists willing to put the lives of people on bikes at risk, whether coming from behind or intimidating from ahead.
Spokes continues to oppose this project.
