Wednesday Write In: Where's the street justice

Thank you for your article concerning our frustration with the new layout.
I work from the medical centre in Gascoigne St and have had discussions with the council.
I cannot understand the changes and why we have lost half of the residential parking on the street.
I cannot understand why we have a single lane for traffic when we had two lanes.
I cannot understand this obsession for cycle lanes at the expense of parking and traffic lanes when it is the motorists who pay registration and cyclists pay nothing towards road usage.
I cannot understand, if speed is such an issue, why to my knowledge there has never been an accident because of speed in Gascoigne St in the 30 years that I have worked there.
The increased hazards introduced by this layout have been indicated to the council. I suggest that they look at the tyre marks on the new concrete nib at the Southland Rd junction.
Beware other residential streets in Hastings - Lumsden Rd and Duke St have already suffered.
The so-called "consultative process" is low key. A letter drop never reached most of the residents - hence the low turnout at meetings.
We are told the council is only an agent and we have been selected by the New Zealand Transport Agency for this experiment.
Bet they don't live in Gascoigne St.Dr Rhod MurrayHastingsRoad 'upgrade' failureI have read with interest the opinions of the residents in Gascoigne and Duke Sts. I can sympathise with these people.
I explained my views to the council overseer when Lumsden Rd had its so-called update.
There is no cycle lane down Lumsden Rd, even though there is a school at the end of it.
When I asked why this was, I was not given an answer. I also asked who was going to mow the extra grass - I was told that hopefully the resident would do it.
I have mowed this grass a few times and it is like mowing a paddock. Several residents on Lumsden Rd have not bothered mowing the grass and the street looks very untidy.
The council sent out a survey to all of the residents to see what we thought of the street but to date we have had no feedback.
It is time that the council listened to the people. We were told the reason that they designed the street this way was to slow down traffic. They were right, it did for a short time, but now it is back to what it was before the alterations.
The problem is that some idiots like to see how fast they can negotiate the bends in the road. This is more noticeable at night. To sum up, the street is far too narrow, cyclists are now riding on the footpath and even the council admits this is not an ideal situation but will do nothing about it.
Also, it is quite disconcerting when you see a car at night coming towards you on your side of the street.Rodger ClearwaterHastings