CAMBRIDGE NEWS | 1
THURSDAY JULY 11, 2024
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The rubber roundabout By Mary Anne Gill
An innovative solution to slow traffic at a major roundabout so pedestrians and cyclists can cross the road safely is copping plenty of criticism. A new pedestrian crossing in Cook Street, metres from the Leamington roundabout, has been built in response to community concerns it was unsafe to cross the connector street. More than 11,000 vehicles use it each day and eight per cent of them are trucks, tankers and trailers heading to and from Waikato Expressway. Waipā engineers designed a solution using yellow and black rubber mats to widen the central island of the Shakespeare-Cook streets’ roundabout, encouraging drivers navigating it to slow down. An average 18,000 vehicles use the roundabout every day - 7000 continue up Shakespeare Street and come from or turn onto Cook Street. The work cost $270,000 and Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency paid just over half. Regular users of the roundabout have contacted The News to complain. One said he was an industrial engineer with global experience and had never seen anything like it anywhere in the world. Waipā Transport manager Bryan Hudson said councils had been putting down rubber cushions and mats on roads and footpaths for years as traffic solutions. “The impetus here was the community wanted the (pedestrian) crossing done and
we can’t wait for a big intersection. We wanted to do something quick, affordable and efficient. “We had to think ‘do we really do an expensive job and make that apron a little bigger’ which would have meant digging it up and pouring more concrete? It would have been a major issue to do that and much more expensive, two or three times the cost. Or do what we’ve done.” The council also considered the possibility the roundabout could be replaced after the Cambridge Connections traffic review. “This is a great way of making the improvement without spending too much money and if we need to tweak it, we can.” Most truck and trailer units would travel through the roundabout without touching the pads. “For some it will be a learning experience,” he said, and drivers would have to be more careful with their alignment when they enter the roundabout. “The beauty of these bumps is they are just screwed down so if we decide from monitoring, that we need to make some changes, we can easily do that. “The key thing is that people are slow on their approach to the pedestrian crossing point. A lot more kids will be able to navigate to school on bikes, walking or on scooters.” Part of one of the pads came loose last week. Hudson said the bolts were too short and not biting into the tarmac and holding the pads firm. That had been fixed.
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JULY 11, 2024
Centre forward of attention
If there was a roof at Cambridge Football Club’s home ground Josh Clarkin might have lifted it on Saturday. The 2023 Southern Conference gold boot winner equalised late in the first half of a Chatham Cup clash with New Zealand football giants Auckland City and was duly mobbed by teammates. The 2022 cup winners responded with three more goals to win 4-1 and progress to the final eight, and end Cambridge’s best run in the country’s longest oldest knockout competition. May Anne Gill was at John Kerkhof Park. See page 23.
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