The timeline for suggested safety improvements to the Mill Road/State Highway 30 intersection on the outskirts of Whakatāne is too long for district councillors who have expressed their disappointment to Waka Kotahi.

Other proposed changes to the stretch of State Highway between Awakeri and Whakatāne to bring objections from councillors were flexible (wire rope) median safety barriers, left-turn-only intersections on many of the side roads, including Mill, Angle, Luxton, Fortune and Kope Drain roads, which would require drivers wanting to turn right into or out of these roads to access the left hand lane via roundabouts at the intersections with Te Rahu, Thornton and White Pine Bush roads.

Waikato-Bay of Plenty relationships regional director David Speirs addressed a meeting of Whakatāne District Council's strategy and policy committee recently outlining proposed safety improvements to the state highway between Whakatāne and Awakeri.

He said the stretch of highway had been identified as a high-risk with two people killed in road accidents between 2016 and 2020, 16 seriously injured and 25 per cent of accidents involving head-on crashes across the centre line.

The consultation period for the recent speed review that will see speeds along the section of highway reduced to between 50kmh and 80kmh is over. Mr Speirs stated at the meeting that it was now 'a done deal” although there were some finer details of where different speed areas would start and finish to be made.

'Is there any question we will be doing the speed limit reductions? No. No question at all, that's done and settled. In terms of the physical interventions, yes, the decision's made. There are some details to work out and that's where we sit down with the key stakeholders like yourselves, who have sufficient capability and knowledge of the system to add to that conversation.”

He said although speed limit reductions were a good short-term solution, over the long term, physical works on the stretch of road would need to be done.

Several areas would also have shoulder widening or safety barriers put in place to prevent vehicles ending up in drains.

Speirs emphasised that the shoulder widening was not being done to create passing opportunities, 'although we are looking at, on the longer stretches, some slow vehicle bays”.

The timeline for these changes shows work taking place from 2024-27.

He said once these physical safety improvements had been made, the speed on these roads could likely be reviewed again with a view to raising the speeds.

He also mentioned there was potential to move Shaw and Mill roads, so they were opposite each other and to put in a roundabout at the intersection.

A map showing proposed safety improvements to State Highway 30 between Awakeri and Whakatane include roundabouts (blue dots) left-in-left-out-only intersections (red circles), median barriers (green line) and shoulder widening (orange lines).

Councillor Lesley Immink said that while she was pleased to hear mention of the Mill Road intersection, she was surprised it was not being looked at as being a priority.

'While I know you have to take the accident and fatality statistics into account, the near misses are phenomenal in that area. I wouldn't like for that to be pushed out to 2024 or 25 or even 2027 where the growth is actually coming much faster than that.

'Just ask any mill worker, seriously, that is one of the highest-risk intersections probably in the district.”

Speirs said the speed reductions were targeted at reducing the risk in that location.

'The speed reductions are a now-solution to a problem that in the future has a physical intervention outcome. We can't do that right now. We don't have the funding; we don't have the detailed design and it's a bit of a moving beast in terms of the nature and the scale of the development that occurs.

Wilson James asked how the many logging trucks and other large vehicles would turn into Mill Road from the west if there was a median barrier across the road.

Speirs said it was not certain yet whether that intersection would be left-turn-only going into Mill Road or left-turn-only going out of it. But logging trucks would have no problem turning around the roundabout to gain access to Mill Road.

Councillor Gerard van Beek expressed concerns about median barriers on areas of the highway that had drains on either side, saying there were already enough vehicles 'parking” in the drains as it was.

Mayor Judy Turner asked, in view of the funding difficulties Waka Kotahi was facing, whether funding for the proposed improvements had been locked.

Speirs said that it had not.

'We are under the pump at the moment.

'We are looking at having $1 billion less in the kitty than we have had.”

-Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air