Manurewa traffic calming makes children safer
Board input brings change forward
More traffic calming measures are on the way for Manurewa’s Wordsworth Quadrant.
The area has been plagued by speeding and other poor driving habits, and, with high numbers of children in the streets, Manurewa Local Board has partnered with Auckland Transport to deliver the safety improvements earlier than first planned.
The $4 million parcel of work within the Quadrant is the largest project of its type across Auckland.
“We want our tamariki to be able to walk in the street to school without fear of having to negotiate a racetrack,” board chair Joseph Allan says.
“These safety measures should go a long way to slowing traffic, and because we know speed is a major factor in the high accident rate we have, that has to be a good thing. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want fewer serious injuries or deaths on our roads.”
Work has been completed on the Wordsworth Road-Rowandale Avenue intersection roundabout and on speed tables to slow traffic approaching it.
At 150 Rowandale Avenue, a raised speed table to slow traffic to make it safer for youngsters walking to Rowandale School has also been completed.
“Our partnership with Auckland Transport has allowed us to focus speed calming measures in a much broader way, across an entire area rather than in a specific spot, which in the past has tended to move the problem a street over,” Allan says.
The partnership with AT has meant delivering the project sooner than first planned.
With Manurewa having one of the highest death and serious injury rates for pedestrians from traffic accidents across Auckland, Allan says the board did not want to wait, especially with significant concerns having been raised by the community.
Work on the project, which covers an area of almost 3 square kilometres, should be completed by June at a total cost of about $4 million, with $1.4 million of that coming from the board.
Contractors have now begun work on speed tables and crossings at Aarts Avenue and John Walker Drive.
Board member Glenn Murphy joined Allan on site this week and says more calming measures are on the way, to safeguard children attending the many schools and preschools in the area.
“Several speed tables and a crossing are being added in Aarts Avenue and John Walker Drive will also get several speed tables, with one to improve the pedestrian crossing outside Finlayson Park School.”
Manurewa-Papakura councillor Daniel Newman says speeding drivers are going to have to slow down.
“No one makes any apology for that. Speeding motorists and rat-runners are going to find it much harder and that’s deliberate. The goal is to slow traffic down and make it safer for pedestrians, most of them children.”