### dunedintv.co.nz November 8, 2013 – 7:16pm
Public consultation on State Highway safety options begins today
Dunedin residents are being asked for their views on two preferred options for improving the safety of the one way sections of State Highway One. There have already been some short term safety improvements made, but as the cycle network is expanded and developed the focus is on the long-term.
Video
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Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Feedback Sought on Cycle Safety Options
This item was published on 08 Nov 2013.
Residents are being asked for their views on two preferred long-term options for improving the safety of Dunedin’s one-way sections of State Highway 1.
The NZ Transport Agency (Transport Agency) has been working with the Dunedin City Council (DCC) to improve cycle safety on State Highway 1 between the Dunedin Botanic Garden and Queens Gardens.
Since 2003, there have been 13 crashes on the State Highway 1 one-way streets in the central city that resulted in serious injury to cyclists, including three fatal crashes. There was also a cyclist fatality in 1998.
There have already been some short-term safety improvements and the focus has now shifted to long-term cycle safety as an expanded cycle network is developed for the city.
Public consultation on the two preferred options begins today and ends at 5pm on Friday, 6 December.
Under both options, the cycle lane would be shifted to the right-hand side of the road and physically separate cyclists from traffic. For the first option, the separated cycle lane would continue to run along both of the one-way routes, with cyclists travelling in the same direction as the traffic. Option two involves a wider separated cycle lane. It would run along Cumberland Street (linked in the vicinity of the S bends by Emily Siedeberg Place), with cyclists able to travel in both directions.
The proposal is at a very early stage and if it goes ahead it could be 2-4 years before construction starts.
The estimated cost for the project is $3.5 million to $4.5 million.
Feedback from the community on the two options will be used to develop one preferred option for a separated cycle lane that is expected to be considered by the Council early next year.
Transport Agency Projects Team Manager Simon Underwood says a separated cycle lane would support the Safe System approach which underpins the road safety work of both the Transport Agency and the DCC. This approach recognises road users do make mistakes and whether injuries result is influenced by the nature of the collision or impact.
“This is highly relevant to cycle lanes where cyclists have to interact with other road users in many ways. Even in collisions with relatively low vehicle speeds, there is still a risk of severe injury. The aim of the separated cycle lanes is to reduce crash risk by reducing the extent to which cyclists and general traffic interact.” –Simon Underwood
“This proposal is all about safety. Concern about cyclist safety is what led the Council to ask for options for the central city and now we want to know which option people prefer.” –Dave Cull
Other possible ‘north-south’ cycle routes were considered, but the two preferred options out for consultation are the only feasible routes.
DCC Transportation Planning Manager Sarah Connolly says both options will have an impact on parking spaces on the street, with 391 spaces affected under option one and 185 under option two.
Feedback is also being sought on ways to address parking provision for the area, should the proposal go ahead. Options include moving affected parking meters, P5s and other time restricted parking to adjacent streets where practical and promoting the use of vacant parks in existing car parking areas and buildings. The DCC could also consider providing extra angle parking in Union, St David, Dundas, Howe and Duke Streets, and providing more commercial parking, such as a new parking building.
To access an online survey form or for more information on the separated cycle lane options, visit www.nzta.govt.nz/dunedincyclesafe, or email your comments to dunedinshcyclelanes @ nzta.govt.nz. Alternatively, ring 03 477 4000 for an information pack, or post your comments to:
Cycle Lane Feedback
C/o NZ Transport Agency
PO Box 5245
Moray Place
Dunedin 9058
People are also welcome to come along to the following drop-in sessions:
● 12 noon – 2pm, Thursday 14 November, Wall Street Mall
● 3pm – 6pm, Tuesday 19 November, Otago Settlers Museum
● 12 noon – 2pm, Wednesday 20 November, The Link (University of Otago)
Contact Transportation Planning Manager on 03 477 4000.
More council information at Dunedin Separated Cycle Lane Proposal
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Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Remember – Share the Road
This item was published on 08 Nov 2013.
Scooters, skateboards, horses and vintage cars will be among the forms of transport on the move during Sunday’s Share the Road Parade. The parade will launch the Dunedin City Council’s Share the Road campaign, which encourages all road users to be considerate so everyone can use the road safely.
DCC Safe and Sustainable Travel Co-ordinator Charlotte Flaherty says, “The parade offers an opportunity for many different road user groups to get together and celebrate each other and our transport system.
“People assume the road is for motorised transport only, but it is used by numerous groups, such as horse riders, cyclists and pedestrians as well.” –Charlotte Flaherty
The parade will start outside the Dental School in Great King Street at 2.30pm. It will travel along Frederick and George Streets and arrive in the Octagon at 3pm. A Master of Ceremonies will give a commentary as the various groups arrive at the Octagon.
Read more
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
*Images: NZTA – (top) Option for a two-way separated cycle lane on Cumberland St, shown near North Ground; (bottom) option for a separated cycle lane, shown near hospital entrance on Cumberland St.
What if? Dunedin... 
I saw the usual the other day in Outram. A gaggle of bikes, maybe 25 or so head around a tee intersection, then one peals out onto the wrong side of the road when he wasn’t around the corner properly into the middle of the opposing lane.
I was thinking the other day about using the cyclists’ tactic at the lights, just drive the ute up onto the pavement and use the walk signal to cross intersections…..
### ODT Online Sat, 9 Nov 2013
Separate lanes for bicycles
By Debbie Porteous
More details of how the Dunedin City Council will deal with the parking changes required if it opts for separated cycle lanes on arterial routes have been released in consultation documents.
Read more
### ODT Online Sun, 10 Nov 2013
Tunnel trails come closer
By Dan Hutchinson – The Star
A dream to re-create the start of the Otago Central Rail Trail through a pair of disused rail tunnels in Dunedin has received a major boost from Government safety officials. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s Health and Safety Group has removed the ”confined space” definition of the Caversham and Chain Hills Tunnels.
Read more
The extent of SPOKES’ orchestration quickly becomes apparent… But, we hope all those against putting cyclists on SH1 get a fair hearing. Just now NZTA sounds defensive.
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### ODT Online Wed, 13 Nov 2013
1000 submissions on cycle lanes
By Debbie Porteous
A proposal to install separated cycle lanes on parts of State Highway 1 through central Dunedin has attracted more than 1000 submissions in the first four days of consultation.
Read more
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Then (spendthrift) Cull, GD and council staff sledge the debt-funded $47 million cycleway budget into top gear…
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### ODT Online Wed, 13 Nov 2013
South Dunedin getting cycleways first
By Debbie Porteous
Work has begun on the first stage of a $4.5 million cycle network around South Dunedin. Fulton Hogan began preparing the area for the work yesterday with construction expected to start today. The first stage of the cycle network traverses South Dunedin and links it to the central city by a continuous, separated route for cyclists to allow them to get around safely.
Read more
Be interesting to see how the general public reacts. My guess is it will be in the usual manner, until it is all in place, then they will realise the parking situation when they have an appointment anywhere in the CBD. They’ll grizzle and huff but it will be too late. The minority will have prevailed again. Well done the survey people, the Mayor and his GD acolytes cheered on by Cr Jinty and ‘Spokes’.
My initial reaction. How pretty it looks but how stupid it is. The ‘landscaped’ separation devices shown in the paper is impractical. Not only is it a likely traffic hazard in itself but it is a maintenance nightmare. Whoever dreamed this idea up need to think again.
I think you might mean drink again Mick.
If you insist
A particularly good point, Mick, about maintenance of the separation strips – in practical work and budget terms, and a magnificent health and safety risk… to compound the traffic hazard created. I hope good numbers of submitters pick up on these aspects.
Needs to be raised at ODT, DunedinTV (Ch39), and in other forums.
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{Mick, I’ve stolen these items for a starter comment at ODT Online http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/281301/cycleway-plan-utter-lunacy#comment-49899 }
ODT Online Thu, 14 Nov 2013
Cycleway plan utter lunacy
By Chris Morris
A plan to replace hundreds of Dunedin’s inner-city parking spaces with cycleways has been labelled ”utter lunacy” by Golden Centre shopping mall general manager Simon Eddy.
Read more
The pedalobby is riding the odtonline. Well organised people up with an already planet-saving mayor and his clique, opposition by disorganised retailers and motorists who hadn’t taken this seriously enough, it had seemed so “Front page ODT on April 1”.
Calvin I’s sure you have seen it but …also in the ODT this morning, Jolyon Manning (ex CE of the Otago Council) observed that the latest Statistics NZ business demography figures show that Dunedin has lost a net 3,480 full or part time jobs in the seven years to February this year – a drop of 6%. He further observes that “we can’t carry on the way we are at the moment and have to make some adjustments”. He further observed a ‘plateauing’ in the University domestic student roll. I cannot see any way this trend will be reversed in the near future. The impact on the rate take is apparent.
But this all seems to go over the heads of our city council with its ‘full steam ahead’ spending policy on cycleways with their fancy ‘landscaping’ for non existing or vanishingly few cyclists. The jobs are going, the rating base is diminishing. The first step in recovery is to cut, or at least delay, such capital expenditure that cannot be justified either by its level of use or its benefits to the ratepayers. And now we have the bus people wanting to emulate the cyclist’s lobbying technique. God help us.
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{Link added. -Eds}
Jolyon Manning “further observed a ‘plateauing’ in the University domestic student roll”? Impossible. We know – we were told repeatedly – the Fubar Stadium would, among its wondrous economic benefits, draw large numbers of extra students to Otago University.
Sarah Connolly, Council transportation planning manager is suggesting new parking buildings be built to make up for lost parking space that will provide safety for cyclists. If this is the case then the benefit for building more parking buildings lies squarely in the cyclist court. As it is not a project called for by motorists for more parking. This being the case the full cost of any parking building should be meet solely by cyclists.
Tui ad right there.
Wirehunt. Don’t be so cynical. We all know that the council needs to ‘make work’. It all fits the ‘grand plan’. Simply put – get rid of the on street non profitable car parking to make cycleways for non existent cyclists, and then build new car parks to replace the original ones. This is all paid for from the revenue from the new car parking building that is leased to some oriental or possibly Australian gentleman because it is not core business that we couldn’t possibly manage ourselves. What is there not to like?
I think we all know the problems with parking buildings in Dunedin, how they’re used and what they cost. DCC has completely f***ed up on this. Besides, Wilson’s takes the money elsewhere/out of town. Thanks cyclists.
I think the axe for Sarah Connolly and Transportation Planning is well overdue.
It seems I’ve been “Access denied” on the odt site :rolleyes:
But was going to comment that if I can’t get handy parking in Dunners then I’ll just shop in another town. It is that simple.
Mick, I too saw Jolyon Manning’s precis of the job loss situation, and how it is a time for revisiting the council’s visionary model. That was exactly what I was alluding to when I wrote the article (published in the ODT 24/10/13) after researching the population trend in Dunedin over the last 110 years. It has been in decline all that time, albeit in stages. As it looks at the moment, if this administration doesn’t take heed and seriously revise their thinking the city is doomed to go down the gurgler. As I said, you cannot support a shrinking establishment by spending on gross ‘vanity’ projects by debt funding. If ever there was a time to lock up the wallet and hunker down and get the household in order then this is it. If the university’s roll growth has truly plateaued, as Jolyon claims, then the shrinkage will accelerate, we will see more closed trading places and job losses. Can’t happen, thinks Dave Cull and the GD faction.
Just look at Detroit USA to see what the result is once the industrial manufacturing base declines. Relatively speaking, Dunedin is in the same bind. If you simply look back to as recent as the end of WW2 you can plot the steady run down and demise of that base.
Gone are the bulk of the engineering enterprises of A&T Burt, John McGregor, Stevenson & Cook, Dunedin Engineering (absorbed into Farra Bros), Sims Engineering, John Chambers Ltd, J W Faulkner Ltd, the Mosgiel Woollen mills, Ross & Glendinning woollen mills, Milburn Lime & Cement works, the Burnside freezing works. The appliance industries of Radiation, Methvens, Bonaire, Shacklocks (F&P), Hallensteins, Sew Hoy & Sons, Garron Manufacturing, Tamahine Knitwear Ltd, Radcliffe Footwear, Union Shipping Co, National Mortgage & Agency, Wright Stephenson, Stronach Morris, Otago Farmers Co-op, Donald Reid, Kempthorne Prosser, Lovell Bates Fruit & Produce, Reillys Fruit and Produce, John M Fraser, The Crystal Ice Cream Co., the Royal Ice Cream Co., Newjoy Ice Cream, Otago Dairy Producers Co-op (of Huia butter fame), Mainland Cheese, National Mortgage Fisheries, Skeggs Fisheries, Otakou Fisheries, Holsum Bakery, J Laurenson Bakery, J R Brown Bakery, Wrights Bakery, Bayley Tonkin Hedges Tannery, Glendermid Tannery, Otago Brush Co, Bing Harris warehouse, Sargood Son & Ewing, Briscoes (the old one), T L Hayman (burnt), Coull Somerville Wilkie, DIC retail, Dreavers, A & T Ingles, Brown Ewing, DSA, Bartons Butchers, Wm Duke & Sons, Forte Roche butcher, Fishers butchers, Johnsons Fish & Poultry, Wardells, W Penrose Ltd, McKenzies, McDuffs, HB menswear, Butterfields, Calder McKay, Snowhite Laundries, Strachan’s Brewery, McGavins Brewery, Wilsons Maltexo & Whisky, Lanes Cordials, Thomsons Cordials.
I must stop now and have lunch, but you can get the gist. That our councillors, and more importantly the staff, charged with planning, and economic development, have not taken heed of history nor have any conception of just what a bloody mess they have created over the last couple of decades is a tragedy. We are on a sinking ship with huge holes just on the waterline and Dave Cull and his ‘plonkers’ are hell-bent on loading more debt to the point where all of a sudden those holes will be below the water line and it will be simply a matter of first into the life boats are the survivors.
Calvin
Glad you stopped for lunch – you were giving me indigestion trying to chew off that long list of all those now long gone enterprises that once made Dunedin.
But take heart Calvin, Dave is here to spend his way to profit assisted by the man who didn’t notice the $16.9m lost from the hospital. Maybe he can recover that from N.Z.T.A. The CX of that must have ways – after all he is very smart – he left Dunedin – as the say, ‘just in time’.
Calvin: What an obituary you have written for Dunedin, but you appeared to have missed the newspapers that have disappeared from the streets leaving only one that hardly qualifies for a news paper, more of an advertising brochure. There was once enough of it to light the fire. It now takes 3 days’ papers to light the fire. Kindling from countdown is becoming the cheaper option.
Oh! I forgot about the ‘plonkers’ Maybe they can plug the holes in that sinking ship.
Don’t count on it. They haven’t enough mattresses.
Jock strap; it wasn’t intended as an obituary. It’s meant to be a wake up call. The message is, look in the mirror before embarking on any more debt expenditure. But our Mayor and his GD people, like most cyclists don’t have rear vision mirrors. As the saying goes; “those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it”. In Dunedin’s case I am afraid that is where we are heading. Not an obituary, just non terminal decline. A bit like serious rheumatoid arthritis, not felt by anyone else, but extremely painful for the sufferer.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news
POLL
Do you support the cycleway proposals for Dunedin’s one-way system?
Yes
No
Don’t know enough about them
Sitting on the fence…
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### ODT Online Sat, 16 Nov 2013
Editorial: Debating cycling matters
The flood of submissions on the proposal to install separate cycle lanes on part of State Highway 1 through central Dunedin, a large number of which are in favour of the plans, underlines strong feelings on cycling in the city. Such is the passion that provision for cycling is becoming the biggest and most divisive issue since the stadium debates.
Read more
Calvin suggests the logical, finding an alternative (lateral) route that’s easy and convenient – let’s hope you put it in a submission to NZTA and to DCC Councillors !! I’ve biked most of that many times.
Some lateral thinking required?
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/281449/cycleways-and-parking-issues#comment-50047
[unabridged]
Higher study, 101 isn’t working
new
Submitted by ej kerr on Mon, 18/11/2013 – 3:02pm.
Clearly scarfie_cyclist has not studied Urban Design, Micro-economics, or anything much at all (not even Life, or Banking) if they think NZTA money comes easy.
No. NZTA is funded by the New Zealand taxpayer; and believe me there are more worthy projects nationwide than stiffing the one-way SH1 system in Dunedin with the inclusion of cycle lanes for use by a very small minority of cyclists. This smacks of former DCC chief executive Jim Harland’s meddling.
As for the thought of killing the commercial network of streets that draw residents and visitors for shopping, services, business engagement, local government, culture and entertainment et al – you’re going way beyond the brief of NZTA or ‘greater’ DCC in suggesting the pedestrianisation of George St. (Forget the political party Greater Dunedin’s bluesky thinking.)
Dunedin is NOT your social experiment.
Only a complete fool (with greenwash friends with spendthrift tendencies – and NO respect for grounded research and expert analysis), somebody with no understanding of the Dunedin economy whatsoever, has the stupidity to suggest these bloody distractions.
Stop wasting our time.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/281301/cycleway-plan-utter-lunacy#comment-50133