Mayor fuming at $600k crossing do-over
Auckland Transport says it cost $600,000 to install, then rip up, a raised pedestrian crossing designed to last 40 years.
The cost of installing the crossing at Hayr Rd in Three Kings in early 2022 was $463,000. Removing it and replacing it with a standard crossing cost about $133,000, AT said.
The full cost of the new works will not be known until completed.
Contractors began digging up the crossing on Tuesday last week and the work is expected to take three weeks.
“They make them. We break them,” one worker said.
The Hayr Rd costs follow Herald revelations AT is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to install pedestrian crossings.
After a series of stories, AT chief executive Dean Kimpton yesterday announced a review of “all upcoming projects to ensure we are delivering affordable and practical solutions at as little cost to ratepayers as possible, including raised pedestrian crossings”.
“We are very aware of concerns that the cost of delivering these safety improvements has been too high in the past, and too disruptive to our roading network.”
AT has chewed through $6 million on 12 signalised crossings and is in the process of spending close to $7m more on 15 more crossings as part of a road safety programme.
Mayor Wayne Brown has been scathing of AT for spending $490,000 on a new raised pedestrian crossing at Williamson Ave in Grey Lynn, not far from his home, calling the $172,000 cost of traffic management “a disgrace”.
“There are people in AT who have convinced themselves that is a good spend of money and it’s not . . .
“They [AT] have lost the plot in terms of value,” Brown said.
AT said the Hayr Rd project involved improvements to bus infrastructure on Hayr Rd and adjoining Warren Ave, saying the raised pedestrian crossing was included on behalf of the Puketāpapa Local Board.
The costs included:
• Bus stop relocations, new bus shelters and concrete bus shelter pads
• Bus stop road markings and “no stopping” yellow lines
• Other road marking and signage
• A raised pedestrian crossing
• Kerb and channel realignment and flush median realignment
• Footpath and vehicle crossing works
• Drainage works, catch pits and subsoil drainage
• Traffic management, including site set-up and take-down
• Topsoil and grass seed for damaged berm areas
• Power connections for the bus shelters, relocation of water main connections
Kimpton said AT would not compromise safety but recognised a common-sense approach was needed to ensure fit-for-purpose and affordable solutions that met the needs of all who walked and biked, as well as motorists.