Fix Hill Street Now campaigners are fuming after pouring time and thousands of dollars into presenting a petition to Parliament, which they believe has got nowhere.
The petition sought to prioritise major improvements to the troubled intersection to address current and future safety and congestion issues.
Fix Hill Street Now raised about $5,000 organised a billboard campaign, produced Hill Street Blues muffins and t-shirts and gathered more than 7000 signatures in support of their petition.
Glyn Williams along with fellow Hill Street Now activists, travelled to Wellington last July to present the petition to Parliament’s Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.
But the committee’s recommendation in respect of the petition, released earlier this month, comprises just two lines:
“The Transport Industrial Relations Committee has considered Petition 2014/115 of Glyn Williams and 7320 others and recommends that the House take note of its report.”
Glyn Williams
Mr Williams told the Warkworth Area Liaison Group this month that the recommendation signalled only further inaction.
“If this is not a kick for touch, I do not know what is,” he said.
In presenting the petition, Hill Street Now argued that the intersection is outdated, confusing and dangerous.
During holiday weekends, traffic can back up for up to 15 kilometres along State Highway 1 and delays of up to two hours are common.
Moreover, the intersection is dangerous for pedestrians to cross, hampers emergency services, limits tourism and deters people from visiting Warkworth’s central business district.
Problems will only get worse with Warkworth’s population set to increase from 4500 to 24,500 residents in the next 15 years, the group maintains.
The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), which controls the intersection, was due to rebuild the intersection by 2008 but shelved the idea, believing other roading projects such as the Puhoi to Warkworth Road of National Significance (RoNS) and the Matakana link road, both due for completion in the early 2020s, would significantly reduce pressure on Hill Street.
Mr Williams disputes this, saying minor improvements provided by these additional roads will completely fail to compensate for the increased traffic due to population growth, and Hill Street will just get worse unless the intersection is upgraded.
“The Transport Minister needs to say to NZTA get off your backside and get this thing moving now,” he said.
However, NZTA told the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that the Hill Street project was part of a national land transport programme and under the Land Transport Management Act, the Government cannot instruct the agency to alter or prioritise any part of the project.
Nevertheless, NZTA said it understood the concerns associated with the Hill Street intersection and has agreed to a joint investigation with Auckland Transport to determine the best long-term option for the intersection, and will actively engage with Hill Street Now.
It said the timing of upgrades to Hill Street would be settled once the preferred option was identified.
In its report, the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee said it was pleased that the Agency would engage with Fix Hill Street Now and said this was a positive outcome of the petition.
Rodney-based MPs Marja Lubeck (Labour) and Tracey Martin (NZ First) both blame the previous National Government’s prioritising of the Roads of National Significance for delaying improvements to Hill Street.
Ms Martin says NZ First campaigned on a promise to Fix Hill Street but the Rodney electorate overwhelmingly voted for the local National Party candidate, Mark Mitchell, who had not delivered on the issue for a number of years. “This makes it very difficult for me to argue as an urgent matter with the current government, as I am not the locally elected representative. The people of this area, through their vote, quite clearly said that they were happy with the previous member’s representation,” she said.
Ms Lubeck said the Government will soon release a new policy statement for land transport, which will make safety a top priority.
Although the Government cannot directly insist what projects the NZTA will fund, the emphasis on safety would ultimately mean dangerous intersections like Hill Street would be among the first to get attention, she said.
