Residents irate over council's abrupt installation of traffic-calming measures

RNZ News

20-05-2025

Two cars meet at the one-lane traffic calming measures on Birchwood Lane.
Photo:
RNZ / Natalie Akoorie
On the outskirts of Hamilton in the sought-after suburb of Tamahere, the residents of Birchwood Lane are at odds over the road's speed limit, and the traffic calming measures the council has introduced.
Last Tuesday the residents of Birchwood Lane in Tamahere came home from school and work to find a "new road layout" that was announced by a Waikato District councillor on Facebook earlier that day.
"Following evidence of continual speeding down this road - and many complaints from local residents and discussion at Tamahere Community Committee level, including hosting a Waikato Police presentation - the council is introducing traffic calming measures as a trial," councillor Crystal Beavis wrote.
'Traffic calming' is a term that refers to design changes that slow traffic to make roads safer.
On a short stretch of the mostly straight 50km/h road, four chicanes had been erected making the road one lane at each point.
The uproar was almost immediate and a war of words between neighbours exploded onto a residents' Facebook page.
"Very unpleasant drive to the school and back. So many cars waiting, wondering who should give way. Good traffic flow totally broken," one annoyed mum wrote.
By Saturday, one of the structures had been anonymously removed and left on the side of the road.
The removed chicanes on Birchwood Lane in Tamahere.
Photo:
RNZ / Natalie Akoorie
The day before Tamahere resident Peter Mayall emailed the council, copying in dozens of residents, saying the chicanes had made the road dangerous.
"They were put in without obviously consulting the community to address a problem which probably in my mind doesn't exist but the council has obviously had a few complaints about speed and I'd say probably about boy racers which they want to address," he told RNZ.
Mayall said a once dual-carriage road, home to lifestyle blocks, open fields and a cycle path, had been turned into a confusing bottleneck and he asked the council to remove the chicanes.
"There's also obviously sun strike down that road and there's a dip and so it makes it really dangerous [for] people deciding who gives way, and on that small stretch of road there's four of them."
Mayall, who has lived in Tamahere for 15 years, argued the speed limit was too low on a road that was once an 80km/h cul-de-sac and he suggested lifting it to 60km/h.
Birchwood Lane resident Andrew Mowbray said he was surprised when the chicanes went in and checked with neighbours who also knew nothing about them.
"Birchwood Lane's a wide open road. It's got a footpath removed. Realistically it should have a speed limit somewhere between 60km/h and 70km/h just because of the type of road it is."
He said the council should have consulted the whole community because he believed there were other areas of the road where risks to pedestrians were higher, including by the roundabout opposite the shops.
"The chicanes... actually don't achieve anything at all in terms of reducing the speed where you've got kids crossing or where there might be an interaction between vehicles and pedestrians."
But another Birchwood Lane resident said she was disappointed one of the chicanes had been pulled out.
Lauren McLean said the vandalism amounted to bullying.
"It lasted three days despite the fact that it was really clear that this was a trial and the fact that people threw a tantrum after three days - and I do think it's a tantrum because people could have just lived with it.
"And it's robbed us of the opportunity to figure out whether this was actually the right thing or not because it's now been stripped out and it's not even as it was."
She said parents had raised the problem of speeding on the road which was a main feeder to the school and park in the area.
McLean said she and her husband couldn't let their children aged seven and five bike to school because they have to cross Birchwood Lane to access the cycle path.
"We live between two bends which makes it especially awkward because we're on the opposite side of the road to the pathway that leads to the school... and so many times we'll be about to cross the road with the kids and someone will come screaming around the bend."
She "absolutely" supported traffic calming measures but didn't think the council had given residents enough warning.
The council said Birchwood Lane was a "rat-run" for commuters between Hamilton and State Highway 3 via Airport Rd because that route avoided congestion at the Tamahere on and off-ramps to the Waikato Expressway.
Waikato District Council general manager of service delivery Megan May said traffic in the area had grown with the development of Tamahere, which now has an estimated population of 7000, and because of the adjacent expressway.
She said monitoring since 2022 showed 80 percent of drivers on Birchwood Lane sped by 20km/h over the limit and some cars were going faster than 100km/h.
"The intent is to do a trial," May said.
The budget for the trial is $50,000.
"We're trying to find a cost-effective solution that will slow the traffic down in that area. The plan is to see how it goes, seek feedback on the community and make a decision on a final solution once we get that feedback."
May said speeding had been a problem since the road opened in 2018 and the council had received a steady stream of complaints from residents, ward councillors and the Tamahere Community Committee.
"I guess from a staff perspective we made an assumption that there was enough community knowledge about the topic and the intent to do a trial on some traffic calming.
"In hindsight, obviously given the feedback from the community through the Facebook page, we didn't communicate this well enough and in hindsight we should have done more to make sure the community was aware of what was happening and what our intent was."
May said the chicane that was removed would not be reinstated.
She said there would now be a "drop-in" session for members of the public in Tamahere on 3 June.