City’s dangerous intersections
Notably absent from the front page article ‘‘Our woes with intersections’’ (June 16) was any mention of free-turn arrows the little green arrows that significantly assist traffic flow.
A while ago I contacted the council about adding free turn arrows to some more lights; notably Elles Rd south into Grace St and north into Martin St.
That South City intersection is really built up all the time; you just can’t turn.
Also Yarrow St right onto Queen’s Dr, Gala right into Kelvin and Tay right onto Lindisfarne at the Night and Day. You can wait through numerous light changes.
I sat through six changes at Tay/ Lindisfarne recently.
When this happens drivers start getting frustrated and choose to make stupid and dangerous decisions.
This Tay/Lindisfarne intersection also needs to be changed back to the way it was: being able to go straight through across the intersection from the left-hand lane.
Currently you get stuck behind the cars trying to turn right onto Tay, the lights go red and you still can’t go. I notice people are doing it anyway. Going straight through from the left does save a lot of trouble.
Another shocking intersection is the Tramway Rd on to Elles Rd. That seriously needs some immediate attention. I sat there for 10 minutes the other night; same with the South City intersection a moment later and I had to divert to the left-hand lane when I could and head home another way.
No doubt there are other bad intersections.
See, when you have a problem you come up with a solution. Unfortunately the council is part of the problem in that they aren’t interested. I received a shocking response when I contacted them, ‘‘we know about all these intersections but nothing will be being done’’.
Can I get a reply from ICC roading manager Russell Pearson about each of these intersections. What will be being done effective immediately for Invercargill driver safety? It’s not just the drivers as Saturday’s article suggested; sometimes it actually is infrastructure. monitoring of the performance of all traffic signals in the city. He also conducts an annual on-site review of any intersections where he sees potential issues.
This annual review has been undertaken recently and we have looked at the performance of many intersections, including at Queens Dr and Yarrow St.
The signals at this location give priority to vehicles on Queens Dr and the assessment by our expert has been that the right turn exclusive arrow is not required.
If it was installed, then the overall intersection would operate less effectively and more delays would occur due to ‘‘extra time’’ being allocated to the turning traffic.
Part of these reviews is to consider all aspects of how the intersections actually work and make decisions about where the time allocation (i.e. how long the lights stay green) occurs.
Similar reasoning for the timing applies at the intersection of Kelvin and Gala streets.
Some intersections in the city are controlled by Invercargill City Council and others, where they intersect with the state highways on Dee and Tay streets, are controlled by the New Zealand Transport Authority.
The Tay and Lindisfarne intersection is controlled by NZTA and they would need to comment directly but we have recently have been discussing with them how this intersection could work better.
The Tramway Rd and Elles Rd intersection does have delays at times.
We do monitor these types of intersections. We plan ahead for projects and have to prioritise what work is able to be undertaken within the budgets available.
The approach for improving road safety involves four ‘‘safety pillars’’ and Kathryn correctly notes that infrastructure (called safer roads and roadsides) is one of them.
The other three are: safer vehicles; safer speed; safer road user (which includes education and enforcement). We, as a community, need to work on each of these safety pillars and we can assure readers we are checking and prioritising our work on our roads and roadsides to improve safety as best as we can. We do look for the community’s support on this.
The council will be looking to have further community meetings on reducing road risk and these are the best opportunity to be able to explain concerns.