Hamilton Urban Blog

At the Te Rapa Rd/Garnett Ave Intersection ‘There is no pedestrian crossing on the north leg of the intersection, so pedestrians will need to use three crossings to get safely across Te Rapa Road’ (p150 of WSP report) – or they just take the risk and run across several lanes of traffic.

The WSP report also notes that ‘Pedestrian access from the northbound stop [by Road & Sport Harley-Davidson] to the signalised intersection is unsafe due to the presence of the uncontrolled service lane entrance at which vehicles often enter at speed’. The  preferred option ‘is to relocate the existing service lane access further to the north with a right-turn bay provided in the central median for southbound traffic’, which ‘removes risk of u-turners [from Te Rapa southbound traffic lane at Garnett intersection] coming into conflict with pedestrians [crossing existing service lane entrance]’, which also means ‘removal of parking on the service lane to make it two-way’ or alternatively ‘tightening the service lane access and providing a zebra crossing across the access’. Both these options enable safer pedestrian crossing of the service lane, be it in the existing location or at new location further north because of the need to provide pedestrian access between the Garnett Ave and Home Straight crossing and further north.

Te Rapa Road was originally built as a 9-lane road in the late 1960s, at a time when “It was considered that the prediction of future cycle trip movements would be of little value” – Hamilton transport study Basic data report: 1968 (p36) – and clearly for Te Rapa Road this also applied for pedestrians. Even today there is no continuous footpath on the west side of Te Rapa Road.

Summing up: There is clearly a need to add a pedestrian crossing on the north leg of the Te Rapa/ Garnett intersection and provide safer pedestrian crossing facilities across the service lane entrance.