Transport minister labels cycleway closure ‘illogical’

Thursday, 31 October 2024

Transport Minister Simeon Brown has called the decision to shut a cycleway for costly safety improvements to a nearby railway “illogical” and asked KiwiRail to explain.

Cyclists will be forced onto dangerous, truck-laden roads when a 1.5km section of the Heathcote Expressway is closed for up to two years.

A safety assessment of the crossing says it poses the risk of death or serious injury once every thousand years.

KiwiRail chief executive Peter Reidy doubled down on the safety risk on Thursday morning and refused to discuss the project in detail.

He told The Press he had previously visited the site of a fatality at a level crossing and did not want to do so again, saying: “It’s not right for people to be walking across a level crossing.”

KiwiRail is insisting that Christchurch City Councils close part of the expressway until $6.5 million worth of safety improvements can be made to the Scruttons Rd rail crossing. It will be closed from November 14 and work is expected to take up to two years.

The cost is more than three times the original estimate of $2m and will have to be paid by ratepayers, the rail company says.

When asked if he thought the risk profile justified the cost to ratepayers, Reidy asked if The Press wanted to interview the family of someone who had died on a crossing.

However Brown, who was in Christchurch on Thursday visiting a KiwiRail depot to inspect new locomotives in the city, said he has asked KiwiRail to relook at the plan and explain the situation to him, which he said “seems illogical”.

“They’ve got to take a balanced approach to these issues, rather than just simply shutting something down and then putting a multimillion-dollar price tag on things. We've got to find cost effective ways to fix these problems.”

Brown said there were a number of examples of KiwiRail wanting to close level crossings “rather than find a safe and efficient way to keep them open” and he wanted to have a conversation about how risk profiles were assessed.

“We need a sensible approach to these things. We need to, obviously, maintain safety, but it needs to be done in a reasonable way which is logical.”

KiwiRail wants automatic gates installed on the cycleway and arm barriers on the road. The additional cost, it says, is mostly due to the extra signalling capacity required to control the arms and gates.

The crossing already has four sets of lights/bells and signs.

The cycleway does not cross the rail crossing, but runs alongside it. According to a council survey an average of 51 pedestrians and cyclists cross the tracks on Fridays and Saturdays.

Reidy, who was at the same event as Brown, said KiwiRail knew the council was unhappy with the current plan.

“But we do know people get killed when crossing lines,” he said.

Residents and a transport engineer say the move is ridiculous and an overreaction. They say the Heathcote Expressway, which opened a year ago, is the only safe cycle route out of Heathcote Valley.

Ferrymead resident Nadia Marinelli, who uses the cycleway twice a day to get to and from work in the city, said the closure would force a lot of people onto Port Hills Rd, the main route to Lyttelton which has a lot of trucks on it.

“It’s so dangerous. There’s so many trucks.”

It was either that or go down Ferry Rd, she said, where she has previously been clipped by a car and on another occasion run off the road.

Marinelli’s 14-year-old son uses the cycleway to get to Catholic Cathedral College, but she said he would probably have to catch the bus when the cycleway closed, because the other routes were not safe.

During the past year, Marinelli has only once encountered a train, and said people would definitely know if one was coming because the existing bells would sound and the lights would flash.

“It’s ridiculous, closing it.”

Heathcote resident Sooze Harris questioned why, if Kiwirail was genuinely concerned about safety, it would send cyclists to use a significantly more dangerous route.

“Heathcote residents will have to go on truck alley,” she said, referring to Port Hills Rd.

Her 15-year-old daughter uses the cycleway to bike to Te Aratai College in Linwood and her son is due to start there next year.

“It’s the only safe way out of the valley on a bike.”

Transport engineer Glen Koorey said the closure and safety work seemed like an over-reaction.

“It’s such a low-use crossing. You don’t need a full-on solution. I don’t quite get it.”

The closure has also astounded Heathcote ward councillor Sara Templeton, who said KiwiRail’s own assessment deemed the risk of a serious incident or fatality at the crossing to be once every 1003 years.

Templeton said it seemed like a way for an underfunded KiwiRail to upgrade its outdated systems at ratepayers’ expense.

“There are other level crossings across the city with no barrier arms and a higher number of pedestrians, cyclists and cars crossing them daily, and this closure simply does not make any sense in that context.”

Templeton has asked that the council elevate the issue to the KiwiRail board and ministers. This will be discussed at a council meeting next week.

Council transport planning and delivery manager Jacob Bradbury said the council had been working with KiwiRail on options to avoid the closure, but KiwiRail’s position remained that the safety risks to cyclists and pedestrians were too high and the cycleway must be closed until the crossing is brought up to KiwiRail’s standard.

The cycleway section, between Vaila Pl and Truscotts Rd, would need to be closed for at least 18 to 24 months, but the council has to find and approve the additional money first.

Any decision on further funding would be made by the mayor and councillors via next year’s annual plan process.

The railway line was one of the busiest in the South Island, Bradbury said, with about 35 trains using the double tracks each day, so it was difficult to close the line to complete the work.

The cycleway brought more cyclists and pedestrians to the level crossing, so it raised the safety risk on the crossing.

In a memo to councillors, Bradbury said council staff had challenged KiwiRail on the costs, but the company had been insistent that the crossing needed to be brought up to its standard.

When asked if the council could say no to KiwiRail, Bradbury said it would continue to work constructively with the company to find a solution.

“Public safety is paramount, so we fully support making the crossing as safe as possible for all users.”

In a letter to the council, KiwiRail said if the council refused to close the cycleway, it would need to assess further options including closing the level crossing.

During the cycleway’s construction, KiwiRail said it did not have resources to support the crossing upgrade in time for the December 2023 opening date, so a temporary fix was agreed, including adding chicanes where the cycleway meets Scruttons Rd, as well as additional flashing lights and bells.

The method for assessing risk to cyclists and pedestrians has changed and was now significantly higher, Bradbury said.

CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this story stated the crossing safety assessment was conducted by KiwiRail. It was prepared for Christchurch City Council by Stantec using the Level Crossing Safety Impact Assessments framework developed by KiwiRail. (Amended 7pm, Monday November 4, 2024)