Bus lane trial on motorway
A new bus lane will be trialled on a Christchurch road, as the city council tries to encourage more people on to public transport to reduce the impact of a new $290 million motorway.
The Christchurch City Council has widened a stretch of Cranford St between Innes Rd and Berwick St, as part of a package of transport improvements in the St Albans, Edgeware and Mairehau areas.
The improvements are designed to manage the impacts of the extra traffic expected to travel through the area when the northern corridor fully opens in mid-December. The corridor will partially open on Monday to help bed in the chip seal surface.
An independent traffic engineer initially recommended the widened section of road should become a clearway, but this was met with fierce pushback from residents and Waimakariri District Council.
It wanted the lane to become a bus lane and the council decided yesterday to trial a peak-hour lane for three months from February, once traffic volumes get back to normal after the summer holiday break.
The corridor extends the Christchurch Northern Motorway through to QEII Drive and Cranford St, and is designed to make travel times in and out of the city shorter.
But residents fear the corridor will lead to congestion and an increase in ‘rat-running’ as people try to find quicker routes through suburban streets.
Councillor Pauline Cotter said she hoped people would be encouraged to get on a bus if they saw one whizzing past while waiting in their car in a queue of traffic.
Deputy mayor Andrew Turner said not approving the bus lane trial would be seen as favouring cars and congestion over public transport. Peak-hour bus lanes supported getting people out of cars, a clearway did not, he said.
Mike Davidson said: ‘‘We have moved a long way as a city and a country since this motorway was agreed to, instead of moving cars we are now focused on moving people.’’
But not all councillors were in support of the bus lane trial.
Aaron Keown said a bus priority lane was not going to get people out of cars.
He wanted to see ‘‘revolutionary’’ proposals like opening the motorway to buses-only first, or making buses free for the first week or month.
Public transport usage in Christchurch was just 2.2 per cent and it was half that outside the city, he said.
‘‘That’s some radical stuff, and we don’t see radical stuff and surprise, surprise we don’t see people getting on buses.’’
James Gough said he did not think seeing a bus going past will get people out of cars. He wanted the council to monitor the lane before deciding what to do with it.
‘‘The most intelligent design solutions come out of evidence, not jumping to a solution beforehand.’’
St Albans resident and member of the St Albans Residents Association, Mark Wilson, said he was pleased the council decided to trial the bus lane, but he hoped it would be made permanent because he and other residents did not want to see that stretch of Cranford St becoming four-lanes.
‘‘We don’t see radical stuff and surprise, surprise we don’t see people getting on buses.’’
Cr Aaron Keown