Beca on Beca Story - Mark II. Who wrote the Devon Street West Cycleway Safety Plan ? And who has now audited it ?

Beca on Beca Story - Mark II.

Who wrote the Devon Street West Cycleway Safety Plan ? Who has now audited the Devon Street West Cycleway Safety Plan ?

The Daily News tells us in a headline on 18 November “Audit finds Tim Tam’s providing significant safety improvement”

According to this story “an independent audit report conducted by Beca New Plymouth” has reported on these significant safety improvements.

Independent how ? Beca New Plymouth designed the Public Health and Safety Plan for Devon St West – so how on earth is the audit of their own work independent ?

And we see a company called Urban Connections has also done a second independent report.

We criticised the NPDC in June this year as Beca had been appointed to do an audit on their own plan. Rather than remove Beca from the audit process – so a truly independent review was done - Gareth Green advised they would appoint a second company to also do an audit.

According to Liz Beck at the NPDC the Urban Connections report found “in general, the corridor upgrade met its stated design intent and had delivered improved safety conditions”.

Does that comment sound like “significant improvements” were made ?

We followed links to the NPDC website to the Beca and Urban Connections Audit reports. We can’t confirm for you what was written as the links provided to the audit reports did not work.

Earlier this year, we asked our supporters, and people across New Plymouth, for feedback on the safety of this cycleway. Over one month we measured what near misses and accidents were happening with the introduction of the dodgem track of a cycleway and road which has been built.

We were told about 19 incidents in the month of June this year, which are summarised here:

This week’s Daily News story reports another cyclist injury needing hospital treatment last weekend, after hitting a Tim Tam, so injuries are still happening 5 months after we last measured them.

Quoted in the Daily News “Reports of accidents on the stretch of State Highway along Devon St West and South Rd had emerged almost on a weekly basis, including over the weekend when a cyclist needed hospital treatment for injuries he suffered after colliding with one of the separators”.

If a usual month has 19 incidents and injuries – that would be 228 incidents in one year.

In our first Beca on Beca Audit story (link below) several of our supporters told us when they rang the NPDC to report their own near miss or harm they were told there was no record of other incidents or injuries. Multiple people asked for their incident to be recorded, but multiple people were told, over the time we were capturing information, there were no records of anyone else with a problem and nowhere to record information.

What does that say about the auditing of the real safety of the Devon Street West cycleway ?

If staff don’t write down when people have phoned about an injury or incident then it doesn’t look like there were any ?

We did find a chart in a Council agenda document which compares “Crash Types’ before the cycleway was installed with after the cycleway was installed. (Copy attached). There isn’t much detail explaining this data, but it seems the crash types are cars versus others ? Incidents with cars are usually recorded by police where this is an injury or a nasty accident.

The trouble with this cycleway is now there is a new dynamic – Cyclist, Pedestrians and Mobility Scooters versus obstacles on the road and cycleway. Police are not attending these incidents and injuries - as no cars are involved.

7,600 people who did not agree to changing this road, mostly highlighted right from the start, it would not be safe.

People have rung the Council wanting them to record the injuries or incidents they have been involved in or witnessed. No record is being kept.

So Beca and Urban Connections auditing of people, cyclists and mobility scooters being safer from cars, in line with the health and safety plan, will probably find all is good, as no one is keeping a record of how it is not good if you are not involved in an incident with a car.

Perhaps the new Councillors at the NPDC would like to ask staff to run a campaign to get people to ring, or e-mail, the Council when they experience a near miss or harm, or when they see this happen to someone else. And perhaps the NPDC Staff could actually record these incidents.

And perhaps people still having problems with the cycleway could start ringing, or e-mailing, the Council and telling them the cycleway is still causing injuries and near misses. The Daily News story this week confirms this is still happening regularly.

Phone: 759-6060

E-mail: enquiries@npdc.govt.nz

Link to Our Beca on Beca Story – Mark I.

https://www.npratepayers.nz/blog/2236604

**** Updated Daily News Story - 21^st November ****

Glenn McLean writes that deputations on 20^th November overwhelmingly spoke for the improved safety of the cycleway. But Glenn doesn’t report that deputations were put off until the December Council meeting where councillors will make decisions about the cycleway.  We are aware of several deputations which do not speak in favour of improved safety.

We also see this story on Taranaki Media with Max Brough and Damon Fox Presenting the Cycleway petition to parliament in Wellington

https://taranakimedia.nz/taranaki-news/new-plymouth/mayor-and-councillor-call-on-wellington-support-to-address-tim-tam-cycleway-barriers

People are welcome to speak at the Council meeting in December with their views of the safety of the Cycleway. There are 2 days of meetings in December, so we will confirm closer to the time which day presentations can be done and let you know how to book to speak to the councillors, if you want to have your say.

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