NZTA: too many bollards being hit

THE NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) is fed up with motorists who keep hitting bollards on the cycleway near Queens Garden, and says the amount of maintenance work it has to do is causing delays.

Transport agency maintenance contract manager Nick Roger said crews ended up having to block a lane of traffic on Cumberland St to give themselves room to work on the flexible bollards, which held up traffic.

‘‘The cycle lane is for cyclists, not car or truck wheels,’’ he said.

‘‘Some replacement bollards in recent weeks have lasted less than an hour before being damaged again.’’

It was particularly important to be careful with the construction of new cycle lanes in the area beginning. .

The NZTA said in a statement it cost about $150 to completely replace a bollard.

With 50 bollards in the area fully replaced in the past year, the agency has spent about $7500.

A staff member at the Leviathan Hotel on Cumberland St agreed cars and buses were constantly hitting the bollards.

Generally the drivers just kept going, and he had never seen accidents caused by vehicles running over the bollards.

However he did collect the 45cm steel screws which attached the bollards to the ground whenever he saw them lying on the road, as they could puncture tyres.

Spokes cycling club president Jon Deans said the bollards had been being knocked over for years, and it was of concern because it showed people were cutting into the cycle lane.

He suspected one or two people did this deliberately, rather than it solely being an issue of bad driving.

PHOTOS: GERARD O’BRIEN Bollard bashing . . . the NZTA says it is having to replace too many bollards near Queens Garden, as they are often struck by cars or — as in this case — trucks.