Memorial Avenue lanes to remain

Press, 7 April 1988, Page 12

Memorial Avenue lanes to remain

Laning along Memorial Avenue could not be changed without affecting cyclists, parking or road safety, according to the Waimairi District Council’s traffic engineer, Mr Peter Atkinson. The council’s works, reserves and traffic committee yesterday viewed a video of an item shown on the television news programme, “The Mainland Touch,” which was critical of the avenue road marking between Clyde Road and Greers Road. Mr Atkinson said that because of the width of the road, there were only a minimal number of options available for laning.

i I Four lanes and no park- ■; ing or two lanes with a median strip and no parkf ing were two possibilities, but consideration also had to be given to the safety of cyclists.

; “You now have a situation which has been relatively free of merger-type accidents,” said Mr Atkinson. “While there is a degree of discomfort to the motorist, to get the yehicles to merge is a relatively safe manoeuvre.” ; If there were accidents caused by merging traffic, injuries were likely to be minimal because of the slow speeds at which the vehicles would be travelling, he said. “There is no compelling need to change, unless you want to limit parking. At this stage I think the present road markings are appropriate.” ! The district engineer, Mr John Lamb, said he was very disappointed to see the television programme about laning. He described its suggestion that problems could be solved by painting more lanes as “simplistic.” “There have been many concerns expressed about this in the past, and we have had report after report after report on laning through Memorial Avenue.”