Residents spent years lobbying for safety improvements.
A $1.78m project to add four raised pedestrian crossings with lights to a Pāpāmoa roundabout has been labelled a “colossal waste of ratepayers’ money” by a critic who says a simple paint job would do.
But users contending with cars “hooning around the corners like crazy” and “near-misses” for school students say they safety improvements are a “Godsend”.
Signalised crossings added to the Tara Rd, Parton Rd, and Te Okuroa Drive roundabout intersection became operational on February 27.
Project financial information provided by Tauranga City Council under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act showed the estimated total cost was about $1.78m, including bus stops and other associated works. The council expected to fund 49 per cent and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency 52 per cent.
The Pāpāmoa intersection is one of the main gateways to fast-growing residential area Pāpāmoa East and is close to a retirement village, schools, daycares and a small block of shops and health services.
The lights operate when activated by people wanting to cross and last about 30 seconds.
A survey of Pāpāmoa Residents and Ratepayers Association members found many accepted or supported the traffic lights but there was frustration at the speed humps described as “unnecessary”, “dangerous” and distracting for drivers.
“The crossing humps annoy the hell out of me. They are slowing traffic after people have crossed… and really just a traffic nuisance,” one member responded in the anonymous survey.
Another responder said in their view, the project was a “colossal waste of ratepayers’ money” as simple painted crossings further back from the roundabout would have sufficed.
One said the speed humps were a “hassle” but they would “slow down the speed idiots” and a “regular user of the route” found negotiating the bump height “very frustrating” but the lights “essential” given the high risks, especially to schoolchildren.
The member said students crossing Parton Rd had previously been “continuously in danger” and motorists had to voluntarily stopped to allow them to cross safely.
“The lights are a welcome addition to a dangerously congested and at times heavily used convergence of roads.”
Roundabout outside Pāpāmoa Beach Village on Te Okuroa Drive, Parton Rd, Tara Rd. Photo / Alex Cairns
A member living at the neighbouring Metlifecare Pāpāmoa Beach Village had, along with others, written to the council requesting pedestrian crossings for “at least five or six years” and said the “new solution makes it safer”.
Village spokeswoman Viola Ammon told the Bay of Plenty Times the crossings had been a “Godsend” for residents.
“Our residents are pretty happy about it because they need to cross the street for buses, the pharmacy and doctors.”
Ammon said many village residents used walking frames or canes and could not move as swiftly as others, so the lights and crossings “made life a lot easier for us”.
Pāpāmoa College principal Iva Ropati. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
The new crossings also relieved some anxiety for Ammon on a personal level, she said.
Ammon and her son lived locally and he often needed to cross the road to get to school.
Previously, this was fraught with danger due to cars “just hooning around the corners, like crazy”.
“That area has grown massively, something was needed.”
Ammon said she was grateful the council made the intersection safer.
Village resident Charles Davis said the crossings were needed and he was glad they had been installed.
Pāpāmoa College principal Iva Ropati said safety concerns for students trying to cross at the roundabout had been “alleviated considerably”, Ropati said.
“We worried every time young people came to school and went home afterwards every day. There were quite a number of near-misses that would happen around that roundabout,” Ropati said.
A new pedestrian crossing outside Pāpāmoa Beach Village on Te Okuroa Drive. Photo / Alex Cairns
Behaviours such as young people trying to cross on bikes or while distracted by phones had “largely, and importantly, disappeared”.
“We are seeing a lot more control and that helps us sleep much better at night. It’s wonderful.”
Ropati said the cost of the project was worth it.
“How much money do you put on a young person or elderly person’s life?”
Council head of transport Nic Johansson said “for years” it received requests for safety improvements at the intersection.
There had been regular near-misses involving speeding vehicles and school children crossing the road, and the growing local population increased the importance of providing safe crossings, he said.
“The raised platforms ensured traffic slowed down before the roundabout, even when the lights are green. This allowed drivers better oversight, increases safety for everyone,” he said.
He said since the lights became operational there had been two complaints and “a number of positive comments”.
How much crossings cost in Tauranga
In the official information response, the council said crossing costs in the city ranged due to variables in the design, size and layout, and inflation had driven up prices in the past three years.
Examples provided included $60,000 to convert an existing raised speed table to a raised crossing on “narrow” Ranch Rd in 2021 and $562,000 for a raised crossing and a lot of footpath work on 13th Ave in 2023.
Projects with multiple crossings included $623,000 for two raised crossings, a centre refuge and footpath works at Pyes Pā Rd and Joyce Rd, and $1.8m for a project involving four raised crossings, roundabout and pavement rebuild at Vale St and Bureta Rd – both in 2023.
Kiri Gillespie is an assistant news director and a senior journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, specialising in local politics and city issues. She was a finalist for the Voyager Media Awards Regional Journalist of the Year in 2021.
