Public pressure has succeeded in Tauranga City Council engineers finding alternatives to the unpopular plan to install traffic lights on Greerton Village's main intersection.
Options to improve the Cameron-Chadwick Rds roundabout would go out for public consultation this month. Two of the options involved sticking with a roundabout, leaving traffic lights as the third option.
Councillor Bill Grainger disclosed the rethink at a recent council meeting.
He said afterwards that he did not want to go too far with changing the existing layout, and supported the option to enlarge the roundabout and put stop-go signals on the village's Cameron Rd pedestrian crossing.
"Governing the pedestrian crossing with lights would help traffic to flow better - particularly at peak times."
Mr Grainger opposed shifting the pedestrian crossing closer to Chadwick Rd, saying it would encourage people to take the shortest route and jaywalk across Cameron Rd. The current location suited most people.
He said the new options were the result of council listening to the community and Greerton business people. There had been no serious injury accidents that he could recall but quite a lot of minor prangs.
Instead of being a two-lane roundabout, he said the proposed new format would have one through lane. The current configuration made it difficult for Bay Hopper buses to keep within the confines of one lane.
Te Papa/Welcome Bay Ward's other councillor Terry Molloy said most people threw their hands up in horror when the plan to convert the roundabout to traffic signals was put to a public meeting.
He said two of the three options that came back involved roundabouts and were innovative, albeit there were a couple of drawbacks. He said transport staff had carried out further work and came back with the proposals that would go out for public consultation.
"Most of us quite like the two other options because they retained a lot of the village characteristics and improved traffic flows. Staff did a huge amount of work to come up with a better model. It may need tweaking, but it is pretty good," Mr Molloy said.
Leigh Crockford of Crockford Real Estate welcomed the change. ''We don't want lights.''
He said the roundabout was very successful because it spat out a lot of cars. The problem was the pedestrian crossing because people dawdled over it all the time.
Mr Crockford assumed that if the new roundabout had one straight ahead lane for Cameron Rd traffic, there would have to be turning lanes for Chadwick Rd or else traffic would bank up all the way to the hospital.
No comment could be obtained from council transportation manager Martin Parkes.
Original timetable to convert intersection to traffic signals
June 2015: Council gives greenlight to install lights
May 2016: Work meant to begin
October 2016: Work meant to end