Tauranga City Council give residents information following the meeting where the updated design was approved. Photo / File
Tauranga City Council give residents information following the meeting where the updated design was approved. Photo / File
Today, the Tauranga City Council approved an updated design for Totara St.
The council has released this list of nine things it wants the public to know about the project.
1. It's about improving safety
The main goal is to make Totara St safer for people who walk and ride bikes. There was a cycling fatality on Totara St in May 2020, and a scooter fatality in 2018.
An independent risk assessment showed the risk of serious injury or death for individual vulnerable road users is higher on Totara St than on a typical road with similar volumes of traffic and of similar length in New Zealand.
A three metre wide shared path between Hewletts Rd and the eastern side of Kawaka St and a separated cycleway between Kawaka and the port side of Rata St will give people on bikes more opportunity to ride off the road, away from heavy vehicles.
The design includes intersection upgrades and a new signalised crossing near Kawaka St.
3. It's not a perfect solution
The immediate priority is to make Totara St safer, which is what the shared path and cycleway will achieve.
Bike Tauranga cycling advocate Andrew Thorpe at the Totara St cycle lane. Photo / File
It won't please everyone and it's not a comprehensive solution for the Mount Maunganui area, but it's a safety improvement that can be made now.
Longer-term planning for Totara St will continue. This planning is complex and it would be several more years before anything could be constructed.
4. It will be built in 2021
The aim is to start building in April 2021, with a construction timeframe of about seven months.
The final details of the design will be finished this year. The council will continue to work with the locally affected Totara St businesses and stakeholders to discuss their needs around property access and parking.
5. It's been designed by experts
The design team are nationally recognised safety experts who have been heavily involved in developing the Christchurch City cycle network.
They understand the issues and complexities of building cycleways in heavy industrial areas and they've seen how cyclists interact with these types of environments. They appreciate what works from both a vehicle user's and a cyclist's perspective.
6. The design has changed since earlier this year
One of the challenges for this project has been how to get people safely from the harbour bridge pathway on the western side of Totara St to the new shared path on the eastern side.
A traffic light will be added at the left turn slip-lane into Totara St. Photo / File
The updated design aims to make it easier for people to cross at the main Hewletts Rd intersection, instead of creating a new crossing point further along Totara St.
A traffic light will be added at the left turn slip-lane into Totara St, which people can activate to cross safely to the main intersection crossing point. This is option is supported by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.
7. It might take a bit longer to drive over the harbour bridge at rush hour
Depending on how many people activate the new left-turn pedestrian crossing signal at Totara St, people driving from the city might sometimes find themselves in longer queues as they approach Hewletts Rd.
At worst this could mean a 1.7-minute delay if the pedestrian crossing lights were to be triggered at each change of the lights during the highest peak hour traffic.
Although 1.7 minutes can seem like a long time, it needs to be measured against the potential for death and serious injury that the project is trying to prevent.
Waka Kotahi supports signalising the Hewletts Rd left turn slip lane to provide a safer crossing for pedestrians and cyclists.
8. Biking between Mount Maunganui and the city will become a more attractive option
Modelling has indicated that the project is expected to increase the number of cyclists using Totara St by approximately 40 per cent.
Traffic over the harbour bridge at rush hour may increase due to the changes. Photo / File
Most of these trips are expected to be between Mount Maunganui and central Tauranga. About 400 people cycle over the harbour bridge each day at the moment.
9. Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency will help pay for it
Council contribution to the project is $4.1million.
The remaining partnership funding of $4.284million will be provided by Waka Kotahi, bringing the total project cost to $8.4m. The business case will be considered by Waka Kotahi in December of this year.
