“Loss Of Safe Access To Heart Of City”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30588, 3 November 1964, Page 14

“Loss Of Safe Access To Heart Of City”

In the Christchurch urban area there were excellent examples of the heart-burning and great cost that an entire community suffered in trying to regain the safe and easy access to the heart of a city that had been given away, said the chairman of the No. 14 District Roads Council (Mr D. B. Dallas) in a report to the council yesterday). The report was received by the meeting, and members of the council were invited to take copies and study it before making any comments. In earlier years local authorities might not have foreseen that every subdivision approved with direct access to an arterial route meant further loss in its traffic capacity and accelerated traffic congestion, Mr Dallas said. It was quite clear that those subdivision plans conferred a gift on a subdivider that now had to be paid for from local and national roading funds. Unrestricted vehicular entrances, turning, and unrestricted cross-traffic and roadside parking caused from 50 to 60 per cent loss of lane capacity, 10 to 40 per cent loss of trip time, and up to 200 per cent increase in the accident rate. Since transport accounted for at least 25 per cent of the economy and was probably the most important single influence in the rate of national development, this serious loss in general transport efficiency was accepted with remarkable complacency, said Mr Dallas. “One waj' of regaining traffic capacity is road widen-j ing. This is what the Waimairii county proposes in Fendalton, road because there is no practicable alternative. In relation to cost and general disturbance, it is far from an ideal solution. It adds capacity, but gives no control of access so that it actually intensifies the conflict between the best interests of abutting property owners and the drivers of through vehicles. “Another form of recovery, when the volume of demand is great enough, is construction of urban motorways—entirely new routes from which all conflicts of movement are eliminated by total control of access. What these motorways can mean in general disturbance and cost when no right of way has been preserved for them needs no further comment. “A third and intermediate form of recovery is establishment of limited access roads and streets. Controlled access routes, in general, are the only means so far devised of preserving efficiency on major arterial routes. Motorways are in this category, but they have restricted application and involve an entirely new route. The limited access road or streets in the more specific sense can be achieved on existing routes, particularly when subdivision has not proceeded too far or is limited to one section depth,” Mr Dallas said. “We face this choice,” Mr Dallas said. “Either we can make provision now in district planning schemes for a major arterial network of controlled access routes that will inevitably be needed, or we can continue to give away access rights to every new subdivision on these routes and commit future generations, in their turn, to the i same unhappy process of buying back the lost traffic ■ capacity. “The benefits of limited ■access are not all one-sided. ■ Whereas the road is insulat[ed from the environment, the latter, at the same time, is liberated from the hazards of the road. Both profit. “The need for action is urgent.” “Not Just One Solution”

Speaking of the report, Mr Dallas said that he had campaigned for four years on the question of access roads before the National Roads Board became interested. There was not just one solution to the problem: a multitude of solutions was needed, as the problem was so complex.

Recent legislation, he said, had eased the problem considerably, and during the year there had been a great deal of activity by the board. Mr Dallas also spoke briefly on the problems of cyclists on the roads and the inconvenience caused by buses putting down and picking up passengers, as solutions, he mentioned cycle lanes off the carriageway and lay-bys for buses.