The chicanes being used for the new road layour. Photo: RNZ / Natalie Akoorie
A council that installed chicanes on a once quiet country lane-turned-rat-run to force drivers to reduce speed, did so after only six formal complaints and without consulting the community.
The move infuriated Tamahere residents near Hamilton, who say the reflector hipsticks and one-lane chicanes are a major crash hazard during fog and at certain times of the day with sun strike.
At an explosive public meeting in the sought-after Waikato country suburb on Tuesday night, the majority of about 70 residents who attended, demanded Waikato District Council end the trial now.
"My suggestion is the trial is over," one man said to a round of applause.
"I think the quicker they're removed the better and I think we're now sitting in a stupid, dangerous situation there."
The four-month trial of four chicanes on a stretch of Birchwood Lane was introduced without notice in mid-May and was due to run until September after the council received six formal complaints and other emails about excessive speed on the road.
The backlash was immediate, with residents bemoaning the new road layout on social media and rejoicing when vandals removed two of the chicanes just four days later.
The new layout. Photo: RNZ / Natalie Akoorie
'Rat-runners' blamed for excessive speeds
Council general manager of service delivery Megan May apologised at the meeting for the lack of consultation and pointed to data taken from a week in 2022 which showed the average speed of drivers on the 50 kilometres an hour road was 61kmh. A small number were travelling faster than 70kmh.
She said the speeding appeared to be from motorists passing through the area who were trying to avoid congestion at the Airport Rd roundabout and Tamahere on-ramp to the Waikato Expressway.
"Rat-runners" were instead detouring through Tamahere back roads including Birchwood Lane, she said.
The lane became a feeder route to the city and other parts of Tamahere that had their access to Hamilton closed with the opening of Alfred Main Drive, which only provides access to nearby Hamilton suburb Hillcrest.
An aerial view of Birchwood Lane in Tamahere shows the road is a feeder for Newell Rd and also traffic from Airport Rd into the Hamilton suburb of Hillcrest via Alfred Main Dr. Traffic using Alfred Main Dr cannot access the Waikato Expressway. Photo: RNZ/Googlemaps
But Birchwood Lane resident Andrew Mowbray pointed out the data showed the speeding was largely confined to between 8am to 9am and 2pm to 3pm, when the nearby Tamahere Model Country School started and ended each day, pointing to residents as the speedsters.
Mowbray argued the road had the wrong speed limit and could cope with 60kmh which was why the average speed was 10kmh above the speed limit and pointed to surrounding roads which were 60kmh.
Another resident queried how many crashes had occurred on the road during the three years since the data was collected; the answer was two.
One of those was a drunk driver who was charged by police.
Speed camera suggested
A Waikato Hospital emergency department doctor and Tamahere resident queried how the chicanes protected children and pedestrians using the Birchwood Lane cycleway to get to and from school, the shops and the park, when none offered a way for pedestrians to cross the road.
She asked why a speed camera and pedestrian crossings including on nearby Wiremu Tamihana Dr weren't considered instead.
Waikato District road policing manager inspector Jeff Penno said to be eligible for a speed camera the road must have a documented crash risk. Birchwood Lane didn't.
Penno told the meeting he was surprised at the new road layout because of the potential for head-on crashes.
"The police have concerns about the conflict of vehicles. We've been there the last two weeks - we are seeing vehicles speed up to get through."
Residents pointed out there was no indication of who was supposed to give way.
Penno said police recently issued 129 speeding tickets.
Residents felt the chicanes were pointless because they didn't effectively address the speeding concerns or make the road safer for pedestrians.
Other traffic calming measures including a painted median-barrier strip pushed cars into potholes and loose gravel, which one man said was extremely dangerous.
"S*** I hope the council's preparing themselves for a head-on accident. You guys are gonna be liable. You really will because you've had the feedback, you know it's dangerous and your proposal is you would like to carry on with the trial."
When May asked if the council should wait until there was a death or a child hit on the road before the council did something a woman replied pointing out a lot of people believed the road was more dangerous now.
"How would you feel if someone was killed because of what you've put in? That's what we're hearing tonight."
'Tell me what we lose'
Resident Lauren McLean said she supported the trial and asked what the community gained if the speed increased to 60khm.
"Tell me what we lose. If we have trucks going down there at 60 or 70, we start degrading the road and trust me I live on Birchwood Lane, I see the trucks go past every day.
"We make it less safe for our children to cross. We make it less safe for people using the cycle path. We make it less safe for horses. We make it noisy for residents."
Tamahere Community Committee chairperson Charles Fletcher said Birchwood Lane, once a private right-of-way that was extended to become a through-road in 2018, was never designed to be the feeder road it was being used as.
"We made submissions on that road when the council decided to open it up and turn it into a feeder road; we said that it had to be upgraded to the same standards as Newell Rd.
"The council over-ruled us and said 'No it doesn't have to because it's not going to get that much traffic on it'."
He said the trial should be aborted.
"This trial's probably over and I think the council should take all that crap down and start again."
Residents asked the council to remove the chicanes, consider the concerns about the danger and the topography of the road after one of the chicanes was installed at the top of a dip causing a number of near-misses, and come up with a better solution.
