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Welcome
to the Community issues
and information forum for
Whaingaroa - Raglan ,
Aotearoa - New Zealand
Raglan Deviation
Upgrade SH 23
How safe will the upgraded SH23 be?
by John Lawson 1 Sep 2002
WEC Assistant Secretary.
Safe upgrading depends on correctly estimating and valuing risks.
- estimating risks
"Steep downhill gradients may cause excessive vehicle speeds
and the potential for crashes may be increased" said OPUS,
former consultants to Transit. They added that a site at the foot
of the hill should have a widened verge with a 1 in 3 maximum slope
to assist vehicle recovery!
Crashes might increase elsewhere too. There’ll still be tight
bends at each end, including 45kph through Four Brothers Reserve.
Transit's new designers, MWH, say larger warning signs will prevent
crashes. The AA says road designers believe that the driver is mainly
responsible for what happens. It’s true that, if everyone were
an alert driver in a well maintained vehicle keeping to the rules,
we’d all be much safer. But sometimes we’re tired, ill,
careless or drunk, there’s no bus to turn to and the taxi costs
more.
Bends and cuttings mean we won’t be able to see the whole new
passing lane at once. So we may start overtaking downhill, but have
to give way quickly to someone coming up the same lane. Will our
reaction and brakes be quick enough at a closing speed of 200kph
on a steep hill? We could have about 12 passing lanes, saving in
total much more than the 35 seconds of this $4m+ scheme and avoid
the problem of braking on a steep hill with restricted sight lines.
As OPUS recognised, the upgrading will add danger on a stretch of
road which has had no fatal crash in over 10 years. Although the
hill section looks dangerous, that perception and the curves, limit
speed to ensure minor crashes compared with the rest of SH23 .
- valuing risks
Roads are justified under cost benefit rules. At present these favour
time savings, with far too little regard for safety, environment
or aesthetics. For example, OPUS recommended a roundabout at Whatawhata
for safety, but couldn’t justify its cost under the present
rules. These allow spending up to $2.55m to save a life.
The Land Transport Safety Authority wants to increase that to $4m.
That would favour safer schemes like passing lanes. The Road Safety
Strategy aims to halve the road toll by 2010 - that is, to the current
road toll in the UK (Sweden is aiming for zero casualties). Therefore
changes to the cost benefit rules are likely to come soon.
WEC aims to inform and raise awareness of what we are doing to our
environment. If you’d like to see more of the information we’ve
amassed, invite us to a meeting of a local group you belong to,
or come to our office. You can write to us (c/o Post Shop), phone
825 0480, e-mail wec@raglan.net.nz
or drop in to see us when our nikau palm sign is outside the town
hall. But you need to do it soon; we expect Transit’s resource
consent application within days.
WEC is not a campaign group, but could offer help in setting one
up, if people feel our road shouldn’t be upgraded under cost
benefit rules which minimise safety.
Progress for Raglan road
Hamilton Press 24 July 2002
Engineering consultants behind the planned straightening of the
Raglan deviation road will hold another consultation meeting among
key stake-holders early next month. Dave Proctor, spokesman for
consultants Montgomery Watson Harza, said key concerns raised at
an initial local community meeting, including run-off from earthworks,
re-vegetation of the route and landscaping, had largely been resolved.
Agreement had been reached with landowners to set aside a strip
of land bordering the new road for planting in native trees. Mr
Proctor said the plan was to apply for a resource consent later
this year and then advertise for a contractor to build the roadway.
The 2.1 km section called the Raglan Deviation West, is planned
to begin at the Four Brothers Reserve on the eastern side and take
a sweep through the valley on the Raglan side to remove many of
the road's tortuous bends. The straightening of the bends immediately
before the reserve would be completed in the future. The $4 million
project was made possible by the National Land Transport Programme
and was one of the few projects outside of the Waikato Expressway
to be included in the programme in the Waikato region. It will take
12-15 months to complete, is planned to improve safety and reduce
time travel on SH23 by a few minutes. It will include a 1200m east-
bound passing lane on its western side which will improve passing
opportunities and reduce driver frustration.
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Upgrade to SH23 - are we getting our money's worth? You may
have read the articles on this roading project in the local press.
There are a number of issues which have not been well publicised,
even though the Whaingaroa Environment Centre (WEC) has organised
public meetings in Raglan. To allow the information to be discussed
as widely as possible, we would like to publish a weekly series
of articles in the Chronicle. Transit has held a couple of ‘partnership’
meetings with a limited group of local people, but have otherwise
only come to explain their SH23 proposals when invited to attend
meetings organised by WEC. The last was a long time ago. So WEC
is asking local groups to put Transit’s current proposals for
our road on their agendas for discussion . WEC would be very pleased
to send a representative to your meeting to provide what information
we have. WEC is concerned that decisions are being made and over
$4m (possibly $7m) of public money spent with little involvement
of the people most affected by the plan. WEC believes there need
to be clear answers to several questions: how safe will the upgraded
road be? how effective will landscaping and stream protection be?
how much have safety, environment and aesthetics been overridden
by the desire to save seconds of time? how much consideration has
been given to alternatives? how much disruption will there be during
construction and why hasn’t it been costed? why has there been
so little consultation and information until WEC insisted on it
? You might have thought that the least we could expect is that
the upgraded road will be safer than the old one. However, there
is a danger that, far from reducing crashes, the new road will increase
them. OPUS, Transit’s previous consultants, said "steep downhill
gradients may cause excessive vehicle speeds and the potential for
crashes may be increased", adding that a site at the bottom of the
hill should have a widened verge with a 3 in 1 maximum slope to
assist vehicle recovery! It seems the present consultants, MWH,
have a different opinion, though their design is very similar. So,
all in all there are many unanswered questions and doubts over Transit’s
proposals. Some of these will be covered in a little more depth
in future articles. WEC would very much like to stimulate debate
on these issues and discuss the possible ways forward. If you would
like to invite us please drop a note in to our office at the old
town hall, phone 825 0480,
e-mail wec@raglan.net.nz
or drop in to see us when our nikau palm sign is out. John Lawson,
WEC Assistant Secretary.
If you or your organisation feel an issue should be listed here
please contact the
webmaster@raglan.co.nz
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