AT are still at it - The disrupters have NOT left the building!
Auckland Council have not managed to control the excesses of the approx. 1330 Auckland Council transport staff that they transferred from Auckland Transport into Auckland Council.
These traffic disrupters are now building yet another totally unnecessary set of traffic lights on Hopetoun Street /at the Beresford Square intersection. (Inevitably with raised pedestrian crossings and judder bars.
I question whether new traffic lights at Hopetoun Street and Beresford Square are even necessary, given the existing nearby signal-controlled pedestrian crossing at the Pitt Street intersection.
The council should be asked to explain whether a simpler pedestrian crossing or a route using the existing lights could meet pedestrian needs at lower cost and with less disruption. Any prior assessment as to viability should compare safety, accessibility, and traffic flows.
Very obviously, should a free flow of pedestrians from the K Road CRL station to just the northwest side of Hopetoun Street be justified,(which I very much doubt), then JUST a simple painted pedestrian crossing at the bottom of Beresford Square - but without traffic lights would have sufficed - at a significantly lower cost and achieving a much lower disruption profile than this final result, to the minimal benefit to all involved.
Let's be honest here - Vehicles must and do stop for pedestrian crossings by law. So, providing expensive “100% guaranteed safety” measures that achieve nothing a simple pedestrian crossing could not, cannot in this fiscal environment, be justified - by any bureaucrats' argument.
Had a professional investigation been completed, then it would have obviously made much more sense to encourage pedestrians leaving the K Rd CRL station to just walk down the northwest side of Pitt Street to the intersection with Hopetoun Street and cross the road MUCH more safely, given that that intersection is already traffic light controlled.
The result to this masterpiece of bureaucratic stupidity is now two full sets of traffic lights (inevitably not synchronised) within about 150 metres of each other.
This is yet another "make work" project that is both absolutely unnecessary and financially unjustifiable given the parlous state of Auckland Councils finances.
Auckland Council must move to stop the traffic staff from continuing to just build and build unnecessary and unwanted projects such as this single prime example.
In order to attempt to justify their continued employment they continue to dream up projects that no one needs or asked for, but which cost a fortune, all the while ignoring the negative input on the lives of all those who are obliged to attempt to use our roads.
Roger Hawkins
Ponsonby
