Tauranga City Council re-establishes divisive road trial in Mount Maunganui

Tuesday, 15 February 2022

The first cul-de-sac trial in Mt Maunganui's Links Avenue “wasn't hugely popular” from a public perspective, Tauranga City Council transport director Brendan Bisley said.

A controversial road trial in Mount Maunganui has been approved and could start in as little as two weeks.

In an extraordinary council meeting on Monday, Tauranga City Council commissioners approved a minimum four-month trial of a cul-de-sac on Links Avenue.

The trial will also see the westbound morning peak bus lane removed and a 30km/h speed limit put in place.

Links Avenue runs parallel between Maunganui Road and Oceanbeach Road, two main arterial routes in Mount Maunganui. It connects Concord Avenue to Golf Road.

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The new four-month trial comes on the back of a five-week trial of the cul-de-sac that started on November 15, 2021.

Some residents of the street were vehemently opposed to the original trial and took to protesting when the cul-de-sac was first put in place.

In the initial trial, the road was blocked-off from Ascot Road, preventing anyone living east of the cul-de-sac easy access to Mount Maunganui.

Tauranga City Council transport director Brendan Bisley said public feedback received during and after the trial was that the primary direction residents go is towards Mount Maunganui.

“From a public perspective the trial wasn't hugely popular.

The impetus for the first trial was some Links Avenue residents’ concerns about children, pedestrians, and cyclists during peak traffic hours.

“I think a lot of people found it inconvenient because it was very difficult, if you live on the Concord Avenue end of the street to get out.”

The new trial will be to move the cul-de-sac further down the road towards Concord Avenue.

All directly affected residents will have access to Golf Road, however, only buses, bicycles and motorbikes will be able to enter or exit Links Avenue from Concord Avenue.

The initial trial came about after some of the street’s residents raised safety concerns around their children, pedestrians and cyclists accessing schools and commuting in peak traffic when the road is heavily congested.

Mount Maunganui Intermediate’s front entrance is on Links Ave and the road is also used by students travelling to Mount Maunganui College and Omanu Primary.

Commissioner Shadrach Rolleston said there was a “significant problem with this particular part of the network”.

“We couldn't just sit by and allow this to continue, which is why we’ve acted,” he said.

Links Avenue is a residential street, yet had about 7500 vehicle movements a day before the first trial, Tauranga City Council commission chair Anne Tolley said.

Traffic data collected from Links Avenue by council before the trial began, showed around 7500 vehicle movements per day.

Commission Chair Anne Tolley said: “This is a residential street which you would normally expect to see two to two and a half thousand vehicles a day”.

“And it's now got seven and a half thousand vehicles a day and that in itself is wrong,” she said.

Council trial data showed the cul-de-sac reduced through movements on Links Avenue by around 70 per cent and “the wider transport network was able to cope”.

Bisley said the purpose of the four-month trial is to enable increased safety through removal of the bus lane and to see if people will move to alternate modes of transport.

“The reason we’re suggesting that we do this trial for a minimum of four months is that we didn't see, with only a five-week trial, any behaviour modification,” he said.

Bisley said people didn’t shift to alternate modes of transport like using buses, cycling or adjusting the times they were travelling.

“Four months will allow for people to try different ways of travelling.

“And it gives us a better idea of what would be the permanent impact on the network, if we would have something like this permanently installed.”

He said people’s preferred route of travel during the initial trial was to go down Oceanbeach Road which saw an increase 3000 vehicles per day to a weekday average of 17,400.

Travel times were also recorded during the trial using anonymous Bluetooth data at timing points, one on Maunganui Road and another on Oceanbeach Road.

The data shows travel times via Oceanbeach Road were 2-3 minutes longer in the afternoon and 35 seconds to 1.4 minutes in the morning.

While travel via Maunganui Road was 40 seconds to 3 minutes longer in the afternoon and 25-50 seconds longer in the morning.

Tolley, who commutes from Pāpāmoa, said her travel time during the trial was “pretty close” to her typical commute, particularly in the morning.

“I wasn’t surprised, but it was much less than we had originally anticipated,” she said.

Commissioner Shadrach Rolleston said in terms of the cul-de-sac and the safety issues around the conflicts between school children, cyclists and car users, “trying to come to the perfect solution is a challenge”.

“Seeing the results [of the trial] it has essentially addressed that safety issue.”

He said there is tension between the community wanting to be safe and the convenience of being able to go places in a timely fashion.

Tolley said the trial is just one piece of work around the city’s roading infrastructure and commissioners are not in any position to make a decision about a permanent solution for Links Ave.

The trial is expected to start in late February and continue for at least four months. Council staff will report back to the commissioners in August.