At the Halswell Liaison Group meeting in May, the head of one of the local schools noted that difficulties that they are having getting children across Halswell Road to use the domain sports fields and the Pool.
At the June meeting, we had Ryan Cooney from NZTA come to talk to us about Halswell Road. NZTA look after State Highways and Halswell Road is SH75. At this stage, NZTA have 4 laning in the long term plan but there is nothing definite in the way of dates etc.
We had quite a lot of discussion about speed limits and there are some question about why the speed limit through Halswell is 60km per hour when crossing the road is such a necessity for getting between different community facilities and other communities have a 50km/hr limit through their place.
Another question that came up was how do NZTA make decisions about what happens to Halswell Road (and other State Highways). He talked about the idea of the best outcomes for "New Zealand Inc." There may be criteria for making these kinds of decisions but it is not clear quite what they are. I felt that the most critical question was 'Which has priority in the planning process - the good (safety and access to community facilities) of the local community or the good (speed) of the people driving through?" Ryan was unable to answer that mainly because he is not privy to how these decisions are made.
It seems to me that, as a community, it would pay for us to be aware of these issues and to get involved in planning processes so that we keep the needs of the local community in the minds of transport planners as much as possible when they are making their plans.
What do you think?
A 60km throughfare may have been the right choice when there wasn't so much to Halswell, but there are now too many people here to maintain that idea.
ReplyDeleteWith 2 large primary schools, Aidenfield School, and more preschools and kindys than you can shake a stick at, it'd be hard for anyone to deny that there are a multitude of kids in the area, and most live on the other side of Halswell Rd from the domain, sports fields, library and pool. We also have a growing population of retirees, many of whom have lived here for decades while raising their families. And of course the hundreds (if not a couple thousand) more homes being added to our community in the next few years.
Yup, 60km/h is too much. But who *does* decide?
My feeling is that we can influence things by writing letters and generally not taking it sitting down. I think these things stay in place because in general communities don't make much noise about what they want (and perhaps also don't think hard about what they want and then go out to get it.
ReplyDeleteI am happy to have the limit at 60 km on Halswell Road, but I would like more crossing islands and perhaps a light controlled one for pedestrians between Lillian St and the domain. This way drivers can get through most of the time, but are stopped when pedestrians need to cross.
ReplyDeleteIt would also be nice to have an island on Halswell Junction Road near Oldham St and Nicholls Road as this is also a wide road that is 60 km/hour and more children will need to cross it with Longhurst etc subdivisions in place.