Auckland Transport announcing a reduction of only 30% to the number of raised pedestrian crossings being built after the mayor’s recent public criticism says to the public – “We were always right, but we will "start" reducing these idiot raised pedestrian crossings only because we have been forced to!"
Dean, as a practicing CEO you know very well that you have the executive authority and the ability to say to all those internal AT zealots "STOP", (or is it "SOTP"?) and your staff will immediately stop wasting our money and ruining our communities.
To do anything other than this Dean is demonstrating how bureaucratically obtuse you and your AT Team are choosing to be, and that option is simply unacceptable to the ratepayers.
The only thing stopping you and your team from stopping these unpopular “speed calming measures”, is your personal inclination to act – as indeed the public demand of you.
Dean, and Andrew, please immediately tell your staff to "STOP” all work on raising pedestrian crossings - citywide. (Indeed, starting to take them out would be the MUCH-preferred option for your ratepayers).
Dean, could you also please instruct Andrew Allen and his team to restore Ponsonby Road to two lanes in each direction at Three Lamps intersection with Pompallier Terrace.
I met with Andrew and his cohort, on site at Three Lamps to show them all the problems that their obviously flawed design would cause, well before construction commenced.
It was immediately apparent that the AT Executives, had no intention of stopping this idiot project, and had turned up to both “tick the consultation box”, and explain that nothing would change – as opposed to turning up to listen and learn, as they should have.
They were fixed in their views that they were right – and nothing would change.
I had the OIA sourced statistics that proved that there had been zero deaths and just a couple of minor incidents at those pedestrian crossings during the last 10 years.
Yet AT’s argument to proceed was (as always) “Safety” – but clearly the statistics told a completely different story – there were no safety issues – NONE.
(If there are no dsi’s on these pedestrian crossings in the next ten years – then AT will not have achieved anything except wasting $1,500,000 of ratepayers hard earned dollars).
Deliberately taking one lane out of the perfectly functioning left turn into Pompallier Terrace as they well know it is another case of AT deliberately creating chaos and congestion for absolutely no valid reason.
One lane served Pompallier Terrace and traffic proceeding West to the harbour bridge, Herne Bay, Westmere and beyond – while the right lane offered easy access East to College Hill and the CBD. An obvious question for AT to answer is: Why change it – it is working perfectly, and always has?
All the locals I’ve discussed this with absolutely hate the deliberate destruction of our local community and our roads and the hideous waste of our money by an obtuse AT management and staff.
The re-designed “solution” is anything but, indeed it creates problems rather than fixes them.
Auckland Transport - we want our Ponsonby Road returned to its original form, as it has happily been for the last 50 or so years, please. Now!
Roger Hawkins, Herne Bay
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Published: March 2024