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Plans to extend Auckland City's network of bus lanes deep into Remuera have prompted a renewed call for extra safety rules to protect pedestrians and other road users.
The city council wants to add 5km of bus lanes along Remuera and St Johns Roads to its 26km network, to increase the reliability of public transport timetables in its push to get more commuters out of their cars.
But the Auckland Tramways Union wants the speed limit in the lanes cut to 40km/h, to give pedestrians or motorists straying into the paths of buses better chances of survival.
Union president Gary Froggatt first suggested the lower limit last month, after a pedestrian was killed in a bus lane in Dominion Rd. That was just days after another man, who was engrossed in a newspaper, was struck by a bus in the same lane, but without being injured.
The police have this week decided to summons a bus driver to court for failing to stop and ascertain injury after the fatal crash, a charge which Mr Froggatt said the union would support its member in contesting.
But he yesterday renewed his call for the lower speed limit, especially in view of the council's latest plans, and added that bus drivers should be required to turn on their headlights in all the city's bus lanes.
"I'm talking about when cars are bumper to bumper in the middle of the road, and buses are whizzing through the inside at 50km/h, with little room for error," Mr Froggatt said.
Auckland City senior transport planner Daniel Newcombe said the bus lanes along Remuera and St Johns Roads would be wider than those in Dominion Rd, which are just 3m across at their narrowest points.
But he said some general traffic lanes were even narrower.
City council traffic safety manager Karen Hay said there had been very few accidents involving buses in the lanes, apart from the Dominion Rd fatality, but a number of cyclists had been knocked down by cars crossing the lanes from side streets.
She said car drivers looking out for buses sometimes tended not to notice cyclists, who were entitled to share the lanes, and the council would consider whether some intersections could be modified to draw more attention to those on two wheels.
Mr Newcombe said the council intended spending $800,000 on introducing bus lanes next year to Remuera and St Johns Rds, but the figure could change as plans were modified in response to public submissions, which close on June 22.
Current plans are for 3.5km of city-bound lanes and 1.5km of eastbound lanes to be reserved for buses and cyclists between 4pm and 6pm.
He said the lanes would exclude the Remuera shopping centre and main intersections, and would generally cover what were now clearways operating during the same hours, so would have little impact on street parking.
They would provide a high-quality public transport link between bus lanes already in place in Newmarket and lanes proposed for arterial roads around Panmure and Mt Wellington.
Mr Newcombe acknowledged that traffic was often heavy along Remuera Rd, which averages more than 22,000 vehicles a day on some stretches, but said the only realistic way to increase capacity to handle growth from the new Mt Wellington quarry subdivision and other developments was to add more buses rather than cars.
