State highway poses problem

DUNEDIN’S busy state highway system, carrying more than 31,000 vehicles a day, could be cut to one twoway road running through the city.

The proposal is included in preliminary plans for the new $1.4 billion Dunedin hospital.

The plans include a suggestion Cumberland St, now oneway northbound, be turned into a local road with reduced traffic, and Castle St, oneway southbound, become a twoway state highway.

The NZ Transport Agency said some traffic may be rerouted via Strathallan, Thomas Burns and Frederick Sts.

The move has been supported by the chairman of the Automobile Association Otago District, but NZTA regional relationships director Jim Harland said yesterday there were serious challenges that would have to be overcome.

If Castle St had two lanes each way north and south, there would be no room for cycle lanes or parking.

If it was one lane each way, it would struggle to cope with demand.

The issue has been under discussion with various agen cies since last year.

The change is mooted as the preferred option in the plan released yesterday by the Ministry of Health.

It notes the oneway streets taking cars north and south on either side of the hospital site between Cumberland and Castle Sts are ‘‘significant constraints’’.

The roads, both state highways, were the busiest in the central city, and created ‘‘a barrier to safe and easy pedestrian access to the building’’.

The plan lays out what it called ‘‘potential initiatives that may change the current road network in the vicinity’’.

Those included changing the oneway system to twoway, reducing the amount of traffic on Cumberland St, making Castle St the main northsouth arterial route and slowing traffic on St Andrew St.

Mr Harland emphasised no decisions had been made, and detailed planning had yet to begin.

‘‘This is an aspirational master plan from the hospital’s perspective at the moment.’’

Mr Harland raised right turns off a twoway highway as one problem such a change could cause.

Right turns across traffic meant a tradeoff in terms of travel time and reliability.

Mr Harland said while it was ‘‘technically possible’’ to fit two lanes in each direction on Castle St, there would be ‘‘major implications’’ for the cycle lanes and parking.

Just one lane each way would struggle to take the number of vehicles that used the state highway.

‘‘That’s why the whole thing has to be looked at as a network.’’

Mr Harland said an option that has been raised more than once in the last decade, of running traffic along Strathallan, Wharf and Thomas Burns Sts, then along by the railway track, up Frederick St, then back on to Cumberland St or Castle St, could be back on the table.

Reducing traffic on St Andrew St, which the hospital was suggesting, meant the eastwest link needed to be ‘‘beefed up’’ elsewhere.

‘‘The two likely candidates are Hanover and Frederick.

‘‘That’s all part of the next bit of work to see which one would be better.’’

Staff would apply to the NZTA board in March for funding for a detailed study.

AA Otago District Council chairman Malcolm Budd said he had been involved in discussions on the roading changes, which he said were workable.

But roading authorities had to find a way to discourage traffic coming off the southern motorway from turning left into Andersons Bay Rd, rather than using Strathallan and Thomas Burns Sts.

The planned harbourside development could also affect the route.

Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull said turning one of the streets, preferably Castle St, into a twoway main state highway, and Cumberland into a local road, was seen as the ideal.

All cycleways could be moved to Cumberland St, and taken off the state highway altogether.