You may already be aware of this world-breaking event, but in case you are not, here’s the news: LGWM have actually made a decision! Of course, now having made a decision, they now want to ask us our opinion on their momentous decision. So, this post, the topic of discussion is all about the proposed Cobham Drive crossing. Seeing as their method of discussion is all behind closed doors (they are calling for submissions by the end of July), I though that it might be more useful to have some discussion in public, and the Eye of the Fish seems to be a good place to discuss that.
I’m sure we are all aware of the problem. The Cobham Drive route from the City to the Airport is the only possible route to use for most people – car, truck, jogger, cyclist, etc. There’s no train as yet, and they discontinued the bus a couple of years ago. So now, the choice is simple: take an Uber of take a Taxi. Its too bloody expensive to drive there and stay in the new multi-storey abortion building anyway, and the Number 2 bus goes nowhere near the front door of the Airport, so if you have bags…. you get the picture. But if you’re a runner (in this weather: you must be mad!) then you’re stuck on the other side of the road and there is nowhere safe to cross.
It seems they looked at 4 possible sites to cross. They decided on just one crossing site, rather than multiple sites.
By selecting a ground level crossing, that means that traffic speeds must slow down. Here’s how.
Above: too complicated !
So this was the decision – and they want to get your sign off so they can say they have “consulted” with the community.
Its a level crossing. A raised bed perhaps? Or just painted lines on the road?
Do you care about best results? Here is what they think.
If you care most of all about costs, here are the tables you might like to look at more closely. Roughly $1million to paint the road and make a central “pool style” fence. But it would cost $10million to $17million to make a bridge or an underpass, apparently. Do you believe their numbers? Or are they all complete rubbish?
So there we have it. Your feedback?
What justification do they give for splitting the crossing into two crossings with the “pool fence” in the middle, ??
Are pedestrians/cyclists going to have to push the cross button again to cross the second half?, or if not why is their crossing time being almost doubled … Surely it is better to get across in the fastest possible time?
I think their rationale will be that cyclists and runners may be inclined to just try and speed past over both sides of the road, and that while they may wait for a signal on one side, they might then speed across the other side as well. Its a good point about the timing though. There may be some further info in their website. https://lgwm.nz/SH1Safety/
I can’t help feeling that they’re barking up the wrong tree. Seems like it would be far better to have a bridge. Once again, having to have a beg button to ask the traffic to stop, just means everyone gets equally pissed off. Build a beautiful bridge, allow the traffic to flow freely, keeps the joggers and cyclists happy and moving, what’s not to like ? Their pricing is complete rubbish though – no way that the ground works should cost a million bucks – and nor should a bridge cost ten times that much.
Well, they could push a solution that satisfies everyone, no matter their mode of transport (i.e. the bridge), but instead, they’re going for the cheapest option (i.e. the traffic light), which has the potential to antagonise transport schools even more. And what happens when people are pissed off? They vote their Council out to put one which will undo whatever the precedent did.
In short: I think 10M$ is a drop in the 6B$ bucket that is LGWM and that we should really do what is right, for everyone.
Wellington has become a true controversy factory nowadays, and this is just one more.
My guess would be that they are probably working on the theory of: slower traffic everywhere makes things safer everywhere. Its part of the reason why Karo Drive was put in at ground level and not put underground. Personally, I think the traffic in Wellington would flow much better if Karo was underground… and then us people who walk up and down Cuba or Taranaki, could do so uninterrupted. But instead, it’s all at street level, and its crap for everyone.
And Benoit, I’ve just found your great post over on Inside Wellington:
https://inside-wellington.org/2021/07/01/who-supports-traffic-lighs-on-cobham-drive/
and combined with a hard hitting commentary from Lindsay Shelton over on Scoop:
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=137353
I think that we can echo the findings of at least 7500 people by saying we agree: Build a Bridge
Why the adversarial approach?
Why does this have to favour cars at the expense of walkers, cyclists at the expense of cars, and round and round in an endless squabbling circle of unnecessary, manufactured antagonism?
Is Wellington so bereft of imagination that the planners and engineers can’t come up with a wizard scheme that improves things for everyone?
Build a bridge and get over it.
How about something at the Fire Station Roundabout which links all the footpaths/cyclepaths/otherpaths in the form of an elevated roundabout. Gentle gradients to ease the struggle of climbing all the way up to the glorious views of the northerly sleet driving down Evans Bay, with “fast-track” stairs as well for those who insist that time is money..
Wellington’s very own Hovenring? =)
I looked that Hovenring thing up on the internet. It looks eminently adaptable to Cobham Drive – and also like a guaranteed recipe for convulsive heart failure among officialdom.
Yes Henry – it’s usefulness will give the bureaucratic machine nervous conniptions.
Keep the pedestrians at ground level and put the vehicles undeneath.
Honestly: just NO.
I don’t see how many injuries and deaths on a level cross per 100,000 vehicles or x cycles of lights is being taken into account.
I don’t see how much more fuel is being used each year due to longer travel plus extra acceleration.
Lack of both reinforces the sense that it’s a decision making fail
True
When I got taught highway engineering, one of the premises was that each person in each traffic jam was being held up from working and paying taxes hence each traffic jam costs the country money
Tell that to the arseheads in the “serious traffic incident investigation unit” or whatever the latest eedjits call themselves that closed the Remutakas for 4 hours -again- just to investigate the fact that a motorcyclist pasted himself across the landscape
As a bike rider myself I expect no sympathy but 4 hours? to figure out that a solo crash was a crash?
I am increasingly of the belief that our country is being run by ninny-headed twonks with all the sense of accountability to the public of a sloth on valium