Ministry has no preference

EITHER option — two oneway roads or two twoway roads — for Dunedin’s central thoroughfares could work for the new Dunedin Hospital, the Ministry of Health says.

Asked whether it thought changes to the roads were required, a ministry spokeswoman said it did not have a position on what the future roading network should look like.

‘‘At this stage, either option could be made to work satisfactorily in terms of the hospital’s function, but more detailed traffic planning work is needed.

‘‘We all recognise there are no simple solutions, such as the retention or removal of the current State Highway 1 oneway system.’’

A multiagency group, including the NZ Transport Agency, and Dunedin City and Otago Regional Councils, has closed its first round of consultation on a proposed overhaul of the way traffic moves through the central city as preparations are made to build the new hospital.

At the midway point of a now closed online survey, which asked for respondents’ thoughts on a range of traffic and trafficrelated topics, project joint client lead and city council transport strategy manager Nick Sargent said only about a third of the 290 responses were in favour of doing away with the oneway system and moving to a twoway system.

But he said the gap ‘‘appears to be closing’’ as more people contributed to the survey.

After the survey closed, the group said more than 750 people responded, but has not responded to a question about preferences among the total responses.

The New Zealand Automobile Association criticised the process of public engagement on the proposed overhaul, saying there was no evidence of analysis of the potential impact on traffic for public consideration.

Instead, the public was asked to give feedback on options based on streetscape images, without any information on how the transport system would perform.

The project group says the traffic group says the modelling information will be available for the next round of consultation.