The council’s Roads activity manages the maintenance and development of roads, bridges, kerbs and channels, street lighting, footpaths and traffic management for all roads in the district (except state highways which are managed by the New Zealand Transport Agency).
Read the section about Roads in the Draft 2009-2019 Community Plan.
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The Council and Transit NZ or whatever they are now called need to get real with roading needs. The Waiwhakaiho bridge should have been duplicated well before Bell Block Bypass.
As a handicapped person, and user of a mobility scooter, I am generally concerned that the council improves the quality of the footpaths thoughout NP. Some of them are awful. And that includes the threshholds, which we have to navigate to cross roads.
Can we expect to see any general improvement?
I understand that Councillor Girling-Butcher is in favour of a general inprovement.
Hi Pete,
There are two significant things we’re doing to address the needs of the disabled members of our community.
The first involves the development of a walking strategy, which will identify infrastructure improvements for pedestrians, including those with disabilities.
The second involves the development of a council-wide disability strategy. This strategy will cover all areas of the council, including roads and footpaths – its prime objective being to identify the issues and barriers that disabled people face, and to plan and undertake remedial actions in a structured way.
In the meantime if you have a specific issue that you’d like us to look at, please give us a call on 759 6060 and we’ll see how we can help. And if you’d like to make a formal submission to the Draft Community Plan on this issue, or any other, you can do so at this link – http://www.newplymouthnz.com/forms/Draft20092019CommunityPlan.aspx
Thanks,
Max Aves
Manager Roading Assets
NPDC
Thanks, Max.
Your reply does not indicate an expected time frame for improvements. Can you add any further insights?
I have no further comments to make on this issue, except to observe that these changes seem to take a long time to be effective.
Where improvements to the footpath surface has been effected, the work has been of a high standard.
Hi Pete,
Max is away today. I’ll catch up with him on Monday and make sure we respond as soon as we can.
Thanks
Nick Maybury
Manager Communications
NPDC
Gidday, Max.
Haven’t had that promised follow-up yet. Nick said [17/4/09] that we would have a response asap.
Hi Pete,
Sorry for the delay in replying!
The developments of the walking and disability strategies will take place over the next six and 12 months respectively.
Both will involve public consultation with the ultimate goal of having them adopted by the Council.
In the meantime, please remember to call or email us if you have any concerns regarding specific locations. We can then look at the site and consider the best ways to improve the situation.
Thanks
Max
Thankyou, Max.
I will keep an eye open for unsuitable places and be armed with my camera!
I noticed that Stratford are consulting upon fixing roads for forestry – does New Plymouth have the same wall of wood coming? – and at what cost?
Hi Mike,
Earlier this year we engaged a consultant for advice on the potential impacts of forestry on our local roading network.
Their study is just about complete and has identified numerous areas of planting, and roads potentially affected as a result.
You may be interested to know that the main catchments involve Tarata Road and Okau Road.
The results of this study will enable us to plan and make appropriate budget provisions for these impacts.
Although there are no forestry-specific budget provisions in the Draft 2009-2019 Community Plan, there are broad provisions for renewals and improvements that can be utilised should the need be proven.
Thanks
Max
Roads..
The latest reports from the NZ Transport Agency have comparson figures between all NZ Councils on the costs of roading.
Usually, a larger council should be more efficient in overhead costs etc than small councils.
Why then do the other 2 Taranaki councils have lesser professional services costs as a perentage of expenditure than you?, and your maintenance costs per kilometre are higher for sealed and unsealed roads?
Are you overstaffed in engineers checking other engineers?
Is big not always beautiful? – and yet they want a super council in Auckland.
Hi Mike,
With regard to professional services costs, you’re quite correct that the NZ Transport Agency monitors and regularly audits these and other costs, and we’re then compared to others in our peer group.
That agency has no specific concerns regarding our current costs. I should point out that these costs are generally incurred under our network professional services contract – a contract that’s contestable on the open market and that’s out for re-bid right now.
Maintenance costs per kilometre of road are generally related to a number of issues including geometry, geology, contract rates, climate, traffic type and volumes, and levels of service offered by the council.
Direct comparisons, while useful for benchmarking purposes, can be slightly misleading unless you can be sure you’re comparing like with like.
Thanks
Max Aves
Manager Roading Assets
NPDC
“Provide a quality local roading network that is efficient and safe to motor vehicle users”
I see the baseline is 85% and the performance target for the next 3/4? years is also 85%, which kinda means no improvement eh?! What about a 1% increase per year?!! or are we just accepting that 15% of taranaki are always going to be grumpy about the roads.
Hi Jeff,
You’ll be pleased to know that New Plymouth District compares very favourably to other NZ councils on public satisfaction with roads.
Another thing to note is that much of the feedback we receive through customer satisfaction surveys is about state highways, which are actually managed by the New Zealand Transport Agency – but which people often think are the responsibility of NPDC.
These include Coronation Avenue/Eliot Street (SH3), Leach Street/Vivian Street/Northgate/Devon Road (SH’s 3 and 45), Courtenay Street/Powderham Street (SH45) and Molesworth Street/St Aubyn Street/Breakwater Road (SH44).
It’s therefore likely that our satisfaction ratings are somewhat tainted by people’s experience of state highways, in particular the east-west corridor, rather than the roads that we look after.
As for increasing our levels of service to try to achieve higher satisfaction ratings of 86 per cent, or even more – yes we could do that but the harsh reality is that increasing our levels of service means increasing the budget, which of course means increasing the amount of money the council collects from the community in rates.
I hope this is a helpful explanation Jeff. And don’t forget that you can make a formal submission on roading, or anything else, at
http://www.newplymouthnz.com/communityplan
Thanks
Max Aves
Manager Roading Assets
NPDC