John MacDonald: Traffic lights aren't the solution for Church Corner

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

Let me paint you a picture. A picture of over-the-top traffic management.

So you’re heading up Riccarton Road in Christchurch, and you get to the traffic lights near Hanson’s Lane where the Athol McCully garden shop used to be back in the day – just before the Woolworths supermarket.

You get to that intersection and the lights are red. So you stop, of course. And then, when they change to green, you keep going up Riccarton Rd towards the church on the corner.

And you get to that intersection where traffic coming from Sockburn and Main South Rd has to give way to you, if you’re heading west and veering to the right to go up Yaldhurst Rd.

At the moment, you can just cruise straight through because there’s a Give Way sign controlling the drivers coming from Main South Road who want to turn right to get onto Riccarton Rd to, maybe, head all the way into town and head over to Ilam.

But after a decision by the Christchurch City Council yesterday, instead of drivers heading westbound having the automatic right of way and being able to head up Yaldhurst Rd without stopping, they’ll come to a set of traffic lights at that intersection.

So, if you’re heading west up Riccarton Rd, you’ll stop at the lights at Hansen’s Lane and then, potentially, have to stop again a little bit further up the road.

If you’re veering to the left to go down Main South Road there’ll be no change, but if you’re heading up Yaldhurst from Church Corner, there’ll be another set of lights to deal with. Over the top.

It’s over the top because traffic at Church Corner is going to become way more congested than it is now.

It’s over the top because, even though the numbers say it’s one of the most dangerous intersections in the city, does it mean that we need traffic flights at all the spots around town where muppets are just incapable of the simple requirement to give way?

As someone who got in touch about this this morning said, roads in Christchurch seem to be designed to accommodate the 1% who probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel in the first place.

And that’s what we’re seeing here with this Church Corner decision.

In some respects, I should be congratulating the council for finally making an actual decision on what to do at Church Corner, because it’s been a debacle.

The local community board met three times and couldn’t reach agreement. They’d been mulling this one over for about a year. There were accusations of the board being dysfunctional – which I couldn’t argue with because, from what was reported, it was very dysfunctional.

In fact, the way that particular community board dealt with this Church Corner thing was a great advertisement for doing away with these boards altogether.

So they met three times and it seemed to turn into a bunfight every time.

So the community board members threw their hands in the air and said ‘let’s get the council to decide’. And the council, being the council, did the old consultation thing. Then, the council, being the council, threw the idea of traffic lights into the mix.

And, because that hadn’t been an option in the first round of consultation, the council, being the council, did another round asking people what they thought.

42% of people said they wanted the current right hand turn from Main South Road onto Riccarton Road gone, and a pedestrian crossing put in.

59% of people said they wanted traffic lights and some form of pedestrian crossing.

9% said they didn’t have a preference – why you would actively take part in a consultation process and not state a preference, I’ll never know.

If I’d put a submission in, I wouldn’t have voted for any of the options put forward by the council. Instead, I would have told them they’d forgotten about Option D - which was to do nothing.

Because that’s what I honestly think. If you’re going to put-in traffic lights just because a few people can’t be bothered giving way, then you may as well put them everywhere. And turning Church Corner into more of a traffic shambles isn’t the answer.

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