Breakwater Road residents say noise is bad, but do not feel the port is fully responsible. Photo / Paul Taylor
Breakwater Road residents say noise is bad, but do not feel the port is fully responsible. Photo / Paul Taylor
Napier Port's neighbours on Breakwater Rd says the road needs a major overhaul if an expected truck traffic increase of 187 per cent over the next eight years comes to fruition.
Neighbour Luke Hasselman said the road surface was uneven and badly needed resealing, making noise from trucks worse.
"For a State Highway it's b***** hopeless."
Hawke's Bay Today recently reported a group called Citizens Environment Advocacy Centre, lead by Ken Crispin, is planning to take Napier Port, Hawke's Bay Regional Council and NZTA to the Environment Court over the noise.
One resident on Breakwater Rd, who did not want to be named, said the noise and safety issues caused by trucks were significant, and she wanted to see the road reduced to 30km/h.
She said families with children often crossed the road to go to the beach, and the trucks posed a risk to them, with many travelling about the 50km/h speed limit.
She said she had tried to get whisper seal installed and the speed limit changed, but as it was a state highway Napier City Council had no control over it, and NZTA was not responding to her emails.
Another couple living on the road, Barbara and David Taylor, suggested a long-term solution could be moving the port to Awatoto and using the current port for cruise ships only.
In the short-term, they said little things like reducing the speed limit and whisper seal could help.
Both Hasselman and the Taylors said they loved living in the area, and the good outweighed the bad.
Breakwater Road residents say noise is bad, but do not feel the port is fully responsible. Photo / Paul Taylor
One of Crispin's complaints is that NZTA does not use a measurement for noise which focuses on low frequency, the type of noise which trucks make.
A NZTA spokesperson said it used an "A-weighted" system, which is the standard system used in New Zealand, and internationally, for environmental noise, including road traffic.
"Other weighting systems, such as "C-weighted" sound, place greater emphasis on lower frequency noise.
"This system is appropriate for very loud sounds (much higher than would reasonably be expected from a road) where the human ear perceives lower and higher frequency noise loudness as nearly the same.
"The use of C-weighted adjustments alone for road traffic noise assessments would not be appropriate or practical."
She said NZTA would not comment on a possible environment court case at this time.
Hawke's Bay Today asked NZTA whether there were any road updates planned to Breakwater Rd to help mitigate the noise. It did not provide a response to this question.
