It has come to the attention of TheBFD that a few weeks ago there was a meeting between NZTA and farmers, farm contractors, trucking firms and other interested parties such as fire service volunteers. This took place near Christchurch and by all accounts, things got quite testy.
The purpose of the meeting was for interested parties to air their concerns and frustrations in relation to the JAG/Twyford plans for spending your money on safety barriers instead of actually building better roads.
One of the main concerns aired at the meeting was around the building of barriers not only down the middle of the road but along the sides as well, creating single lanes with no ability to pull over or escape from any possible danger coming from the opposite lane.
A farm contractor who was at the meeting pointed out that as tractors and slow vehicles had nowhere to pull over, large lines of impatient drivers built up behind them thereby causing more unsafe driving practices. He illustrated his point by mentioning a daily problem that he encounters. When he is in his tractor going over the (roughly) 2 km long Rakaia River bridge, if he started out with no one behind him, by the time he reached the end of the bridge he could have up to a hundred vehicles behind him.
The Government plan, of course, is to install these barriers onto all sorts of roadways, with the recommended distance between crossings being six to eight kilometres!
Putting in the new barriers, with up to 8 km sections of road where there may be nowhere for a tractor or other slow-moving vehicle to pull over, could easily mean that there will be many hundreds of vehicles queued up. If a tractor had to go to the end of the barrier zone before they could turn to go back to where they were originally going it would then cause frustration going the other way too. When asked how this would be safe, NZTA basically said that people would have to be patient. They, of course, shared no concern about the extra costs that will be piled upon operators having to double back all the time.
It was mentioned by Fire & Emergency that if there was an accident on one side of the barrier and fire service and emergency vehicles had to travel all those extra kilometres to reach the site it could mean the difference between life and death.
Of course, we currently have a similar situation on many of our motorways but there is a major difference. Motorways have multiple lanes, and usually breakdown lanes, so in a major incident, crews will stop by the centreline and cross to the other side of motorway, allowing traffic to still flow, albeit slowly, at least on one side of the motorway. You can see in the photo above how that might work out if a fire engine stopped in the single lane portion. We will need to get used to having lanes blocked for all manner of reasons. A simple nose to tail or a flat tyre will become a major problem. Quite how a breakdown truck will get through I have no idea. But you know, just be patient.
Other concerns raised were around the fact that many of the barriers do not have openings large enough for a truck and trailer unit to do a U-turn so they can head back to where they were going as well. Surely forcing large vehicles to attempt U-turns, instead of simple right turns, must go down as one of this government’s more idiotic failures. Of course where there isn’t sufficient room, then pulling into the side road and reversing back onto the highway might be their only option. Tell me again how this is going to save lives!
There did not seem to be any backdown from the NZTA but it was at least agreed that they would look at making wider and longer turning areas into the side roads where applicable. But not every side road will have access from the opposite side so this will still be a huge problem, and since it’s all about the Green Utopian vision of zero deaths, bugger the extra time and costs to the farmers and landowners. And if you have to add an extra eight km onto your commute or school run? Sorry but you’ll have to suck it up, we all know the Green Party aren’t interested in the environment. Anyway, you “car fascists” should all be on bikes.
Another participant in the meeting owns a business that trims the windbreak trees that are so common down in that part of the country. He was at a loss as to how he is supposed to drive his rig alongside the edge of the road trimming trees with his massive blades, without completely jamming up traffic behind him, let alone the problem of actually being able to get close enough to the trees in the first place if barriers are everywhere at the edge of the road.
Our understanding is that contracts for the safety barriers are already in place so everything is about to kick-off, at least in Canterbury. However, it seems like no one in Wellington understands the ramifications of the barriers for the efficient use of the roads.
Make no mistake, these barriers can be extremely effective, some will be a great addition and will likely help reduce road trauma, but there will be plenty that might have the opposite effect.
P.S. Thanks to commenter Hakaru for his work on this story.