Have We Become The Ministry of Silly Walks?
A joint Christchurch community board meeting has resulted in an outcome worthy of Monty Python.
A decision to put a pedestrian crossing across Deans Avenue by the Al Noor mosque will see speed humps on one side and a flat surface on the other.
The Papanui Innes Central community board voted for the staff recommendation which will see the road narrowed to one lane with build outs and speed humps. Innes board member Ali Jones was the only representative not to vote for this option. She presented an alternative motion that would have seen the decision go back to the full council for a decision. This was lost.
The Riccarton Hornby Halswell community board members voted for another option which includes the same build outs but without the speed humps on their side of the road which is already one lane. (*note this has been corrected from an earlier version which stated it was two lanes)
The funding for this project is coming from the CRAF fund, money given to the Christchurch City Council by the last government for “regeneration“ projects.
Jones suggests that $500,000 could have been spent in other areas of the Riccarton ward that have CRAF projects scheduled for the next financial year.
“Deans Avenue is a ring road. It is a main road around the park and once again we are retrofitting speed bumps and narrowing it which will cause further congestion and frustration. This was not about safety, this was about spending money that was burning a hole in the pockets of elected members. Just because it’s government money doesn’t change the fact that decisions still require common-sense and critical thinking,” she says.
A number of submitters on the project are regular submitters on transport projects and represent groups that consistently argue against vehicles with ideological blinkers on. She says all submitters are to be applauded for taking the time to engage however the repeated “cut and paste” anti-car rhetoric is concerning.
“One group suggested that there were plenty of ways for people to get to Moorhouse Ave and Tower Junction other than using Deans Avenue. To suggest that people should turn right at Deans Avenue onto Riccarton Road to get to Tower Junction is just ridiculous. If you can actually get across the traffic to turn right, good luck, and Riccarton Avenue is already jammed at busy times of the day,” she says.
Jones agrees that the parking on the side of the park side of Deans Avenue needs addressing as it was installed far too narrowly to safely fit a parked vehicle.
“How that parking even got the green light in the first place is beyond me. However, I believe there were ways to address that without spending $500,000 and putting speed bumps on a main access road that carries thousands vehicles a day.”
Ali Jones says the common-sense approach would’ve been to send the entire decision to the Christchurch City Council where both sides of the road could’ve been considered and voted on in its entirety, rather than the outcome that occurred on Thursday with one side of the road designed and built differently to the other.
-Ends-
Ali Jones, Innes representative, Papanui Innes Central Community Board
Ph 0272473112
Note: Option two, which was the only option that didn’t see the road narrowed to one lane, was unable to be considered by elected members as council staff had not done the work required to allow that.