Temporary one-way street and coloured dots to go

Pink and blue dots and a one-way street in Cambridge which are part of a trial to make streets safer for kids to walk, bike and scooter to school will be removed following community feedback.

In the coming weeks, the pop-up cycleway on Wilson and Duke streets, which is part of the Streets for People project, will be reduced to restore two-way vehicle access to upper Duke Street. The remainder of the cycleway will be left in place for the duration of the trial.

Pink and blue dots at a number of intersections and some of the speed cushions on Bryce Street will also be removed.

The changes come after a significant amount of feedback was received from residents and community groups, and traffic and pedestrian monitoring was carried out to assess the effectiveness of the 25 temporary changes being trialled.

Waipā District Council service delivery group manager Dawn Inglis said the monitoring had shown some very positive results.

“An average of 396 people are using the cycleway each day and there has been a 56 per cent increase in the number of kids cycling to school and other cyclists biking on Wilson and Duke streets which is significant.

“We’ve received some really great feedback from kids and their parents who now use the cycleway on a daily basis to get to and from school and feel much safer because of it.

“We’ve also heard from parts of our community the one-way access isn’t working well and has created more congestion on other streets.

“Emergency services have also told us it makes it tricky for them to respond to emergencies in the west of Cambridge and difficult for their volunteers to get to the station.”

Inglis said the trial had shown a permanent solution was needed on upper Duke Street which would provide a safe space for cyclists while maintaining two lanes of traffic.

“Although we are dismantling part of the cycleway early, we’ve learnt a lot from this trial which will help inform future decisions on permanent walking and cycling infrastructure at this location.

“We know the cycleway at this spot is well used and is needed to get kids to school safely, but a permanent solution would need to allow for two way access for vehicles. This is something we will be looking at later this year.”

Inglis said further changes would be made to the network while the trial was underway to further reflect feedback from residents, community groups and local schools.

“The project team are continuing to monitor feedback and have recently held workshops with each of the affected schools to assess how we can further improve the network.”

Council will decide at the end of June which treatments to make permanent and which to remove.

Streets for People is 90 per cent funded by Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency, is part of a nationwide initiative to make towns and cities more people friendly.