Driver frustration levels are rising as Whakatāne moves into its busiest time of year, and two major roadworks projects exasperate congestion issues.

Wherever people gather the traffic issues they underwent to get there are the hottest topic for conversation.

Whakatāne businessman Des Fermah queried whether there is a problem with traffic management, which he puts down to Whakatāne District Council’s “preoccupation with roundabouts”.

“Taupō is only slightly bigger than Whakatāne, but it uses traffic lights. There never seems to be any congestion in that town because I go there regularly. Why is this town fixated with roundabouts instead of traffic lights,” he said.

The council, however, said recent traffic modeling showed that traffic lights would only create longer delays.

Mr Fermah said during the five years he has had his central Whakatāne denture business, which has a waiting room for clients, the most common topic of conversation was always traffic and the problem was steadily increasing.

“I hear it every day. Every third or fourth client apologises for being late and they put it down to traffic. It’s only getting worse,” he said.

Mr Fermah rang Local Democracy Reporting out of frustration after being stuck in a queue of traffic at the intersection of Short and Commerce streets for over 10 minutes on Wednesday. He said it was due to a large truck getting stuck because it was too big for the roundabout.

Local Democracy Reporting understands there was also a collision at the roundabout that day, which held up traffic for some time.

Mr Fermah said he frequently saw or heard about traffic being held up by overly cautious drivers being too nervous to enter the roundabout.

“The roundabouts are reliant of drivers having some sort of common sense and inevitably, what I see is inexperienced or elderly drivers very nervous about going into a roundabout. Consequently, people are held up. Isn’t it time to introduce traffic lights to this town? So that we can have a proper system to allow cars to cross over intersections.”

He said this was only one example of the issues caused by roundabouts.

Other issues were caused when traffic was heavy in one direction and drivers stopped in the middle of the intersection not allowing vehicles travelling the other way to turn right. This was particularly bad at the Keepa Road roundabout and the King Street and Domain Road roundabout.

“I know the council painted those hash marks on the road recently but they are not working.”

He said during heavy traffic times, drivers’ ability to pull out of side streets was reliant on people being courteous. “But a lot of the time they aren’t.”

He speculated on whether it was due to the expense of traffic lights that prevented the council from installing them.

“But how much is it costing the consumer sitting at these roundabouts waiting?” he said.

The fire station on Commerce Street is the only place in Whakatāne that currently has traffic lights. They operate only during a call out.

Whakatāne Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Chris Hands said people didn’t always stop for them. “We don’t rely on them because so many people go through them,” Mr Hands said.
“We still are very cautious when we come out of the station that people may not stop for them.”

He felt is was possibly because people were not used to traffic lights in Whakatāne.

He agreed that traffic congestion was bad. He said it was just “one of those things” at this time of year.

“It’s just going to get worse over the next couple of weeks.”

He said the brigade’s biggest problem, when the siren went off was actually getting to the station.

“The traffic is so bad. We’re trying to take alternative routes but everything is just jammed up. It’s not so bad once we’re in the truck – 90 percent of the people are good and get out of our way. You get a couple that are in their own little world. Some people don’t know what to do when they hear a fire siren, they’ll just stop in the middle of a roundabout rather than pull off to the side.”

The council’s transportation manager, Ann-Elise Reynolds, said during the design phase of the Landing Road renewal traffic lights were considered as an option. However traffic modelling showed they would contribute to longer delays.
“Given this option wasn’t feasible for the district’s busiest roundabout, it’s unlikely to be feasible for any of our other roundabouts across the rohe,” Miss Reynolds said.

“Part of the reasoning for this is we only have a standard 20 metre road reserve corridor. In most cases for lights to function appropriately, they require at least two lanes for each approach, which includes significant additional length for the merge area after the intersection.

“We currently don’t have the road reserve width for this and to acquire it would come at significant financial cost, would take quite some time to work through, and would present potential issues with the purchasing of multiple portions of private land.”

Miss Reynolds noted that traffic flows were always particularly heavy at this time of year.

“This is currently further exacerbated by a number of road works occurring presently, altering traffic flows and reducing speeds. Unfortunately, the summer holiday season coincides with the necessary summer construction season.”

She urged drivers not to take out their frustrations on road workers.

“Our frontline roading and construction workers live within our communities, too. When driving through roadworks this summer, please take care and give our crews a friendly wave or smile as you drive by to show your appreciation as they work in the heat. We want them to arrive home to their loved ones safe and supported.”

Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.