Gisborne District Council councillors clash over traffic management cost

Orange road cones are a high-profile component of temporary traffic management, but Gisborne district councillor Colin Alder is concerned some traffic management practices are wasteful and costly. Photo / Paul Rickard

Gisborne District Council’s new local transport committee will receive “an anatomy of how temporary traffic management is calculated” after two councillors offered divergent opinions on the controversial issue.

Committee chairman Colin Alder, at its first meeting under the new council, expressed concern at what he saw as wasteful and costly spending.

In contrast, councillor Rawinia Parata said council staff were being efficient and compliant with rules and monitoring requirements.

Council community lifelines director Tim Barry, speaking after councillors Alder and Parata, said staff would like to offer the next committee meeting (due in the new year) “an anatomy” of temporary traffic management that would comprise a worked example to provide a broader understanding to the committee.

The presentation would not only include “our figure in isolation”, but figures from other potentially comparable jurisdictions when there was confidence it was “apples for apples around the country”, Barry said.

Alder started the debate by referring to the “old days of traffic management” when motorists would ignore roadwork signs, which could remain on site for weeks after the work was completed.

The councillor said he had complained to the council and contractors about such occurrences.

“They’re dumbing us down ... you knew no one was working there, so you tended to start ignoring signs.”

Alder said that was before the days of orange cones.

“We now have cones and they’re left out there and we get a similar numbness, I think, happening.”

Traffic management was important while repairing roads, Alder said. But the public impression was that traffic management was “over-costed and, perhaps, over-influenced”.

Alder said he had been contacted during the week by two farmers living in dead-end roads where traffic management included two operators and traffic lights.

The roading budget had been “chewed up” by what the farmers saw as unnecessary costs.

The council faced not balancing its roading budget and having to retract the level of service because of traffic management waste.

Councillor Parata said no member of the committee was an engineer, machine operator or traffic management specialist.

She was “deeply concerned” with comments about “what is or is not appropriate in terms of the safety and compliance of our roading operations”.

Whānau who commented on traffic management matters were also not specialists.

Alder, as chairman of the committee, should set the tone for “what is our lane and what is not our lane”, Parata said.

Council staff had said they were being efficient and compliant with rules and monitoring, she said.

The district’s roads – whether they were being repaired by Transport Rebuild East Coast (TREC), NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi or by the council – were dangerous and required traffic management, signage and cones.

Parata said it was appropriate to raise questions, but the council needed to be careful and support the mahi of staff and be led by experts.

Alder said he acknowledged what Parata had said.

“All I am saying is we need to check every avenue where our money is being spent and to ensure it is being spent efficiently.”

He wanted figures presented to the committee to show such money was being spent efficiently.

Parata said councillors were regularly being presented with such figures and constantly undermining decisions made by operational staff was not helpful.