Getting the balance right around road safety zones
YOUR article (ODT, 31.3.21) concerning improved road safety should allow us not only to determine the effectiveness of the school safety zones but also gain an insight to the decisionmaking processes of the transport department.
Council transport engineering and road safety team leader Hjarne Poulsen is reported as saying ‘‘new school zones’’ have helped with making the city streets safer.
In order to make this assertion, he needs two pieces of information. Firstly, the number of accidents prior to the zones being installed, and secondly, the number of accidents after the zones were installed.
Can he share with us these figures? The veil of commercial sensitivity cannot be used here. Personally, I was not aware that there was a measurable accident problem around our schools and am looking forward to being edified on this score.
Children’s safety is a sensitive and emotional issue and rightfully so.
However, a practical discussion can still, and should, be had around the mechanics of transport decisionmaking to ensure that in the case of school safety zones the impositions of cost, of less parking, of road obstacles and of unattractive painted roads are, in fact, purposeful and not a figment of an underoccupied bureaucratic mind wishing to feel their employment is justified by activity.
My question is to try to gain an understanding of the basis of many of these decisions. Are they determined upon empirical evidence or upon anecdotal conversations had around the cafe table?
Unless figures asked for can be produced showing the rationale of the activity then it would appear the latter might be the case.
Robin Hyndman
Kenmure
[DCC transport group manager Jeanine Benson replies:
‘‘The road safety work outside Dunedin schools has been requested by the school communities. The number of crashes is not the determining factor on where this infrastructure is placed. A decision is made based on the risk level and the likelihood of a crash.
‘‘Many of the teachers and parents who request road safety changes man the school crossings and see the way motorists drive and the number of nearmisses outside their school.
‘‘The feedback so far has been positive from the schools which have new infrastructure, for example, the schools in the Central City Schools Cluster on City Rise. We are being asked by other Dunedin schools to improve their road safety.
‘‘One of the ways we’re monitoring the effectiveness of infrastructure around schools is the speed data we’re collecting from the electronic school zone signs. During the MosgielTaieri Safer School Streets trial, data showed the average speed of drivers travelling along Argyle St slowed from 55kmh to 52kmh during school times.
‘‘This is part of a national campaign which is rolling out across the whole country. The work must meet a range of criteria to be cofunded by Waka Kotahi NZ
Transport Agency.’’]