A Papanui Innes Central Community Board meeting today has seen a recommendation made to the City Council to make the bus lane on Cranford Street, permanent.

A more than three-year bus lane trial is due to end next year, and a decision on a permanent use of the lane must be made.

Innes board member, Ali Jones, says it is disappointing that the majority of submitters in a recent consultation about the issue, who supported a peak hour vehicle lane, have been ignored.

“I must thank Victoria Henstock, the Papanui councillor, for her support on this matter. She gets it. It is disappointing the other members, particularly the councillor for our Innes ward, did not listen to the community and see the opportunity a peak hour clearway offers,” she says.

There were 632 submissions on the Cranford consultation, the majority wanting a clearway on Cranford Street. Henstock says we want and need the public to engage with us and today those members who voted for a bus lane have ignored our community.

“One of the biggest criticisms we constantly hear about consultations is, “council never listens so why bother?” Well today the vote around the table was a great example of not listening,” she says.

The council staff recommendation was to remove the bus lane and install a peak hour vehicle lane, a clearway, which would have reduced congestion and gridlock for a period of around 3-5 years. Jones and Henstock said this, combined with safety measures including pedestrian barriers, red light cameras and better enforcement, was a much better option for the community than continued congestion and increased vehicle emissions which would continue with a bus lane.

“Our kids are not safe, our families and communities are not safe. I am also advocating for pedestrian walkovers at the Westminster/Cranford intersection and possibly the English Park pedestrian crossing, as well as other safety measures. There is millions of dollars in the Downstream Effects Management Plan budget so let’s stop throwing good money after bad with speed humps and chicanes in nearby streets, and deal with the issues on Cranford Street once and for all,” she says.

Jones says the misinformation and hyperbole around this issue was disappointing.

“To hear the local councillor state that if a clearway was installed, “in a year (or so) on…Cranford Street, four lanes would need to be six lanes and then eight and so on and so forth.” That is not correct and is just one example of some of the nonsense we have heard on this matter,” she says.

Jones says we all want our community to be safe, to be able to move around as easily as possible and reduce emissions as much as possible and the bus lane, as reports and evidence shows, has not achieved this on Cranford Street.

“I am really concerned about our children. As Andrea Harnett, the principal of St Albans Primary School said today, what price do we put on the life of a child?”

The majority of the community board voted for a bus lane with additional safety measures, with chair Emma Norrish voting for a T2 lane. Jones and Henstock voted against the bus lane option expressing a preference for a clearway (as did the majority of submitters), with additional safety measures.

City Councillors will now consider the issue as approving a bus lane (and T2 lane) is outside the Community Board’s delegations; a clearway is not so if it happens that the council prefers a clearway, the matter will go back to the community board.

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