The residents of Mellons Bay Road are one step closer to making their street safer.
Sparked by three crashes in eight days, long time resident David Mallowes joined forces with some of his neighbours to put together a petition asking Auckland Transport (AT) for a traffic review.
Mellons Bay Road resident David Mallowes
helped start a petition to fight for traffic calming measures
to be introduced, following three crashes in eight days.
“This year alone we have experienced at least ten car write offs, numerous other cars damaged, a power pole and a transformer demolished, and another transformer seriously damaged,” Mallowes says in aletter to the Howick Local Board.
“Recently two elderly pedestrians on the footpath were nearly killed,” he says.
A total of 188 households took part in the petition and 213 residents signed, asking AT to complete a traffic review and look at improving safety by reducing speeding and reckless driving along Mellons Bay Road.
The petition showed 100 per cent support from residents, many of whom recounted numerous high speed crashes over the years.
The petition also indicated that 98 per cent of the signatories agree that should speed bumps be part of the solution, they will support the safety measure regardless of any personal inconvenience it may cause.
Mallowes says the response from local police has been positive and says they have been proactive in policing the streets in the area.
In a letter to Mallowes, Inspector Wendy Spiller outlined the safety concerns for Mellons Bay Road and outlined the Police’s support for the community residents’ concerns.
“We would welcome the opportunity to work together with the community and Auckland Transport to look at options in terms of safety enhancements and to reduce the speed on Mellons Bay Road,” she says.
The petition has since been presented to the Howick Local Board by Mallowes and fellow resident Paula Kappeli.
The request for the board to push for a traffic review and prioritise solutions recommended by AT was met with a positive response from board members.
Mallowes says the matter is now in the hands of AT and says conversations with AT have been positive.
“The resurfacing work on Mellons Bay Road has prevented useful traffic counts which are essential for AT engineers to analyse what is going wrong,” he says.
“Roadwork is ongoing for some time yet, and then is Christmas, followed by school back in February. Traffic counts will be in February, a shame that more crashes will happen in the meantime, but understandable.”
Once AT have an engineering safety report needed to make recommendation of solutions to the traffic problems, Mallowes says they can move forward with encouraging the local board to prioritise the safety improvements on Mellons Bay road.
