WELLINGTON’S Willis St will have semi-permanent safety barriers, and one end of Bond St will be blocked off to traffic.
And the speed limit in Willis and Manners Sts may be lowered from 30kmh to 20kmh.
These measures to try to protect pedestrians in the inner city were considered by a special meeting of Wellington City Council.
Councillors have acted on a pedestrian safety report commissioned after numerous accidents involving pedestrians and buses on the central city two-way bus route introduced last year.
A council officer’s report recommended leaving safety barriers along a stretch of Willis St for at least year.
This is where a woman was killed last year and a director of NZ Bus was run down in July.
Bond St (above right) will be blocked off to traffic at the Willis St end to stop vehicles emerging into the path of buses.
Wellington City Council roading officer Mike Mendonca told councillors there are plans to leave the current temporary steel barriers on both sides of Willis Street until Bond St can be closed to through traffic and the council is confident pedestrian behaviour has changed.
A steering group behind the proposal also recommended changing the speed limit from 30km to 20km along Willis St and Manners St, but this will take some time because the council will need to amend a bylaw.
Pedestrians are forgetting to look to their right because of an uneven flow on Willis Street with most traffic north bound, Mr Mendonca says.
Mr Mendonca says the council has been working to slow down pedestrians on Willis St by placing seating and rubbish bins, which steer pedestrians to safer places to cross the road.
Council Officer Paul Barker briefed councillors on the Golden Mile Pedestrian Safety Review.
A steering group made up of representatives from ACC, the Police, NZ Bus, NZ Transport agency, Greater Wellington and Wellington City Council, the group commissioned two independent reviews.
One review focused on the study of crash reduction while the other looked at human behavioural factors.
The reviews began in September, 2011, after the Rugby World Cup, when it was thought pedestrian and motorist behaviour would have returned to normal.
The majority of crashes (65%) involved rear end collisions with no fatalities.
The most injuries and fatalities were caused by pedestrian versus vehicle accidents, which were responsible for 50% of injuries and almost 80% of fatalities.
Recommendations from the reports include speed reductions, better signage, installation of barriers and consistent waiting times at signals.
Another recommendation is that the visibility of buses could be improved by adding more yellow to the front of the vehicles.
At least 13 people have been hit by buses since the council’s $12.5 million Manners St bus lane opened in November 2010, the Dominion Post reported today.
A number of vehicles coming out of Bond St are understood to have been hit by buses at the busy junction, the paper said.
Psychologists were brought in to study pedestrian behaviour and help identify possible safety improvements to prevent more accidents.
