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Managing road safety and efficiency under the Resource Management Act 1991: The way forward
5. Issue identification
Print version: Managing road safety and efficiency under the Resource Management Act 1991 (PDF, 259 KB, 63 pages)
5.1 Safety and efficiency
District plans need to clearly identify the issues of concern within particular environments and also deal with issues associated with cumulative effects (Ministry for the Environment, 1997). With respect to road safety and efficiency matters, there is a range of valid considerations. Many of these are described in documents produced by parties such as Transit and Land Transport NZ (see appendix 3).
While Transit is responsible for state highways only, the objective of Land Transport NZ is to allocate resources in a way that contributes to an integrated, safe, responsive and sustainable land transport system. In meeting its objective, Land Transport NZ must exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility, which includes:
- avoiding, to the extent reasonable in the circumstances, adverse effects on the environment
- ensuring, to the extent practicable, that persons or organisations preparing land transport programmes
- take into account the views of affected communities
- give early and full consideration to land transport options and alternatives in a manner that contributes to the aforementioned objectives
- provide early and full opportunities for persons and organisations to contribute to the development of land transport programmes.
The National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) is the mechanism through which Land Transport NZ allocates funds. Currently, the allocation is across the following output groups: maintenance and construction of the road network; provision of passenger transport services; alternatives to roading (efficient alternatives to the provision or maintenance of roads); regional development funding for regions that have acute transport needs; and promotion of walking and cycling.
The provision of funding for the safety and efficiency of roads are therefore at the core of Land Transport NZ’s tasks. Decisions to upgrade or provide new roads (and which ones) must be weighed against demands for alternative forms of transport and the regional competition for funds.
Land Transport NZ has authorised this best practice guideline to provide positive input into addressing the safety and efficiency of roads in New Zealand through district plans. The guideline’s purpose is to exchange information and provide updates for working groups, legislation, standards and guidelines, highway and procurement strategies, and other issues relevant to road-controlling authorities and other member organisations.
5.2 Examples of activities affecting road management
The following examples illustrate the integrated nature of how one activity or development can impact on the safety or efficiency of a major through-route:
- Sealing roads on a pre-existing but substandard alignment, thereby increasing the operating speed but maintaining the existing substandard alignment.
- Continuing piecemeal expansion of residential subdivision with inadequate provision for a ‘distributor network’.
- Site-specific intersection improvements along routes that are not well integrated with the remainder of the route in terms of design, safety and capacity.
- Developments and subdivisions that are remote from arterial routes, generating traffic volumes that then exceed the safe design capacity of the intersections linking them to the arterial system.
- Major developments of large generators of traffic, such as shopping malls, multi-storey carparks and stadiums, that are inappropriately accessed directly or indirectly off main arterial routes.
5.3 Issue breakdown
The issues identified as appropriate for specific consideration in this guideline are categorised into groupings of activities with similar types of effects.
Group 1 - Generic rural/urban issues
| Issue 1 | Access |
| Issue 2 | Conflicts between commercial and residential activities |
| Issue 3 (linkages) | Provision and access to public facilities
Linkages/cohesion between developments Public access to coasts, lakes and rivers |
| Issue 4 | Road/subdivision design |
| Issue 5 | Parking/loading/servicing |
| Issue 6 | Signs |
| Issue 7 | Glare/lighting |
| Issue 8 | Cross-local authority boundary issues |
| Issue 9 | Transport options/mobility restrictions |
Group 2 - Rural issues
| Issue 10 (boundaries) | Rural townships on main transport corridors |
| Issue 11 (ad hoc development) | Roadside stalls Tourist-related commercial activities Rural recreation activities Retail development/expansion (downstream/cumulative effects) High-volume retailing activities Service/industrial activities |
| Issue 12 | Shading and frosts on susceptible roads |
Group 3 - Urban issues
| Issue 13 | Vibration/noise |
| Issue 14 | Pedestrian/cycle facilities |
This list is not exhaustive in identifying matters associated with road safety and efficiency. Clearly, there are other issues that can also be addressed in district plans and applications for resource consents, such as control over roadside vegetation.
Page created: 26 September 2008