The Waitai Coastal-Burwood-Linwood Community Board had to undergo additional discussion before giving the green light to the safety improvement proposal for the Briggs/Marshland/Lake Terrace Rds intersection.
It came after a number of board members expressed concern about the raised safety platforms on all approaches to the intersection, which were among the proposed changes.
Raised platforms are a traffic calming measure to reduce the speed of vehicles entering an intersection to 30km/h.
They were first installed in Christchurch at the busy intersection of Lincoln Rd, Barrington Rd and Whiteleigh Ave, but the city council is proposing to use raised platforms at other high-risk intersections.
City council senior transportation engineer Gemma Dioni said they would be a key tool in the Road to Zero strategy.
“From a system perspective, we are trying to reduce the number of death and serious injury crashes on our network,” Dioni said.
Other proposed changes include a new traffic island, kerb extensions and a new cycle lane on Lake Terrace Rd.
If both boards approve it, construction is expected to start in May next year.
“Because the one at Lincoln [Addington] is pretty bad. People don’t expect them,” he said.
There have been complaints from drivers on social media after the bottom of their vehicles were scraped by the new safety platforms at the Lincoln Rd intersection.
Burwood Ward city councillor Kelly Barber was also not in favour of the raised safety platforms
“Road to Zero is an admirable goal. It’s very easy to achieve if we drive everywhere at 20km/h. But I don’t think in our society, it is practical," Barber said.
“I think these are the sort of intersection changes that give council a bad name.”
“They’ve been used all over the country. It’s new to Christchurch, it’s new to us. But they are a good system that does slow the traffic down.”
There have been four serious injury crashes in the last 10 years at the Shirley intersection.
City council staff identified red light running, right turning traffic failing to give way, and right-angle crashes being the most significant crash problems.
There is also a high collective and medium high personal risk at this intersection as it has a death and serious injury score of 1.86.
Collective risk refers to the number of fatal and serious crashes per kilometre or within a set distance of an intersection.
While personal risk refers to the likelihood of an individual being involved in a fatal or serious crashes per million vehicle kilometre travelled.
