New Zealand

Roundabouts are a popular choice for intersection control around New Zealand, particularly for replacing priority controlled intersections where traffic volumes are high and safety has deteriorated. However, safety problems can occur at poorly designed roundabouts, particularly where speed is not managed well and where cycle volumes are high.

Despite their generally good record, safety deficient roundabout designs have received considerable attention from safety auditors over the last 10 or so years. This culminated in the publication of the guide The ins and outs of roundabouts. This guide lists problems encountered in 50 safety audit reports. The guide lists visibility and geometric design features, particularly inadequate deflection and marking, as problem areas. The guide states that ‘the safe and efficient movement of traffic relies on good unobstructed lines of sight’. The provision of good visibility at roundabouts follows the guidance in the Austroads Guide to traffic engineering practice part 6: roundabouts. This practice, which occurs in New Zealand and Australia, differs to practice in other parts of the world, particularly Europe, where visibility is often restricted to reduce speeds and improve safety. This discrepancy was a major motivator for this research project.

Cycling is a sustainable mode of travel and an alternative to motor vehicle trips, particularly for shorter trips (less than 5km). Government transport strategies, including the New Zealand Transport Strategy and Getting there – on foot, by cycle, encourage the development of cycling and walking plans and infrastructure improvements that encourage more ‘active’ mode trips. While health and transport benefits are likely to result from promoting more cycling, the risk of having a crash while cycling is typically higher than while travelling as a driver or passenger in a motor vehicle. This is of concern to cyclists, potential cyclists and organisations involved in road safety.

The challenge for transport engineers and planners is to create a transportation environment that is as safe as possible for cyclists. This can be achieved through a series of measures, including, where practical, reducing traffic volumes and speeds, building on-road cycle lanes and intersection facilities, and constructing of off-roadway cycle paths. The safety benefit of most of these measures has not, to date, been quantified in New Zealand. Internationally, the research is also limited, particular in terms of the direct relationship between crashes and various roadway features and traffic conditions. This study extends previous work on the relationship between crashes and volumes of cycles and motor vehicles to the development of crash prediction models for on-roadway cycle facilities at intersections and along road links. The effects of speed and off-roadway paths have been assessed based on overseas research.

This report has been prepared to identify legal and institutional barriers to the integration of land use and transport planning in New Zealand. The research undertaken for the report was carried out between July 2006 and August 2007, as part of Land Transport New Zealand’s 2006/2007 Research Programme. Over the last decade, the integration of land use and transport has gained increasing international attention. In large part, this trend has been necessitated by the growing environmental and social impacts of road networks and motor vehicle use. These impacts are widely seen as being exacerbated by a lack of integration between land use and transport planning. Recent developments in New Zealand have also led to an emerging awareness of the importance of integrating land use and transport planning. The introduction of the New Zealand Transport Strategy and the Land Transport Management Act 2003 has served to focus attention on improving transport planning. In response, the Ministry of Transport has identified integration as one of four strategic priorities for the sector. While the principle of integration is becoming established, its implementation remains problematic. Overseas experience shows there are often significant legal and institutional barriers to integration, many resulting from the traditional separation of land use and transport planning. Identifying and addressing these barriers is, therefore, critical if planning processes are to work together to achieve sustainable transport outcomes. In summary, the main aspects of New Zealand’s planning arrangements that appear to be hindering integration are the: • allocation of planning functions across a range of different organisations • limited linkages between land use and transport plans • lack of common goals and policies to guide planning outcomes • disparities in public access to decision-making processes and limited opportunities for the public to genuinely influence transport decisions • funding and assessment processes that do not support land use and transport integration.

Working with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) and North Shore City Council on the ‘Travelwise to School’ pilot project on the North Shore in 2002, we surveyed the parent community to ascertain their interest in various alternative modes for their children’s travel to and from school. We found that 87 of the 184 families who responded would allow their children to cycle to school in a group with another adult supervising their ride. One-third of these families offered to supervise the children on a rostered basis. This suggested that there was a high, albeit latent, interest in the wider community in what we call the ‘cycle train’. Because of this interest, we undertook to implement cycle train networks in New Zealand schools. The cycle train is similar in approach to another alternative way of getting children to and from school, the ‘walking school bus’ (WSB), where adult ‘conductors’ walk along a set route to school, collecting children from designated ‘bus stops’. The cycle train is essentially a ‘walking school bus’ on bicycle wheels.