Re: Auckland Transport’s (AT) latest memo re Sunnyhills School Safer Streets Programme.
Dear Auckland Transport,
Myself and others in and around Fordyce Avenue remain mystified as to (a) why you continue with and (b) how you justify this expensive and abysmal project.
At the risk of repeating what has gone before, in simple terms:
There never was or ever has been an accident around Sunnyhills School in at least 40 years, if ever. The cost of this temporary and unnecessary experiment must be huge.
It is highly likely that should AT ever decide on a final design, there will be no funding available to complete it.
Changes in behaviour take no account of the fact that 3 point turns, children crossing the street from behind parked cars, cars parking over driveways etc have shifted and now occur just over the hill and out of sight of the school.
I would venture that the referred to responses in support of AT’s efforts to date do not represent the view of locals who live in Fordyce Ave but are the views of those who visit for 10 minutes, morning and afternoon.
The once pretty entrance to Fordyce Ave has now been disgracefully disfigured for at least 18 months and based on AT’s latest response, looks like remaining so for at least another year.
As witnessed by those of us who live here, the longer this goes on the uglier it becomes with thriving weeds and dying plants filling grotesque plastic planter boxes, leaves and other detritus building up behind them, red reflective bollards and ineffective speed bumps adding insult to injury aesthetically.
A solution for your consideration.
Remove all the bollards, planter boxes, line painting etc and return Fordyce Ave to its former glory. Based on history safety issues won’t change.
AT will not be embarrassed by having to announce, sometime in the future, that although they have sympathy for the experiment, there are in fact no funds to complete it.
If it would help, myself and others would be pleased to remove the offending material for AT thus saving further unnecessary cost.
As an observation, I often drop my granddaughter off at Glendowie School in the morning. This school is on a main thoroughfare with much higher traffic volumes than Sunnyhills Primary. Their modus operandi is to put a few cones down the street for, say, 30 metres at crossing time, man the crossing signs as per normal and everything works swimmingly!
Why don’t you try it?
Bary Williams, Sunnyhills
