Senior frontline firefighters and Fire and Emergency New Zealand executives are concerned that traffic calming measures installed by Auckland Transport are delaying response times for emergency vehicles, which “can literally mean the difference between life and death”.
The Herald has obtained a 66-page report via the Official Information Act (OIA) that looks into the impact of traffic calming measures on emergency response times. It has found Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) will likely need to alter its equipment and “work out” how to adapt to changing Kiwi roads.
Auckland Transport [AT] concedes it has had discussions with Fenz leadership over the issue and has “modified design of raised speed tables/safety platforms, especially for those installed on primary Fenz response routes”.
But the issue seems unresolved for many frontline firefighters.
Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick has also expressed a view there is a “low-trust environment” that has begun to surround AT over the planning and public communication of its streetscape projects.
Both the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union and a senior Auckland frontline firefighter have told the Herald speed humps and raised crossings that are increasingly installed on streets throughout the region are delaying their response times to emergencies.
A senior firefighter in central Auckland says the time it takes to slow a 14-tonne fire truck from peak emergency speed of 75km/h down to 15km/h to get over speed humps and then return to top speed, is a significant threat to public safety.
“You know, a fire doubles in size every 30 seconds. We slow down for these things - it can mean the difference between controlling that fire very quickly or having that whole house burned to the ground,” the senior firefighter said.
“Time is critical, it can literally mean the difference between life and death. We put lights and sirens on the top of our vehicles for a reason and these things [speed humps] have the opposite effect. It’s absolutely region-wide.”
Firefighters union representative Martin Campbell is an Auckland-based firefighter and says he is aware of Fenz representatives raising the issue with senior AT figures in meetings.
But the lack of responsiveness from AT management to the concerns has been “very frustrating”, Campbell says.
“While it may not seem like a huge delay, seconds count when it comes to both fires and medical responses and things like that.
“It is creating risk in the sense it’s taking us longer to get to incidents.”
Campbell cites the Fenz 2023 annual report which highlights traffic calming measures, as well as urban sprawl, among the “factors influencing performance” in meeting the eight-minute target for crews arriving at structure fires.
The 2023 annual report shows that Fenz failed to meet its target of hitting the eight-minute response time threshold 80 per cent of the time.
Fenz crews only reached structural fires within eight minutes of being alerted to them 77 per cent of the time in 2023.
It also narrowly failed its eight-minute response target when attending medical emergencies.
Campbell also gave the example of Queen St in the Auckland CBD which had its footpath substantially widened and the road reduced down to one lane each way as part of a $12.8 million pedestrianisation project delivered in 2023.
“If we have a fire in Queen St, we find it difficult to get close enough to the building to get up high, to get access to potentially where a fire is or where people may be needing rescue,” Campbell said.
“So that’s the kind of consideration that I don’t think Auckland Transport has in their mind when they’re doing all these designs and make things look pretty.”
AT manager of transport safety, Teresa Burnett, dismissed the claim that raised crossings or speed bumps were a major cause of delayed emergency response times, instead citing traffic congestion as “causing the biggest issues”.
Burnett would not answer questions around whether Fenz was unhappy with the extent of new traffic calming measures across the region, or whether the rate of traffic calming measures being installed had increased in recent years.
“We work closely with Fenz on a range of transport safety issues and regularly engage with them on both individual projects as well as broader strategic road safety matters.
Burnett cited examples of AT aiding Fenz response times, such as creating a “green wave” of traffic lights throughout the city centre, since 2020, in which teams at AT operations centre give Fenz crews a continuous cycle of green lights where possible during call-outs.
Fenz vehicles also now have access to the Northern Busway and other busways, Burnett said.
Fenz Auckland region manager Ron Devlin confirmed AT had modified and removed raised speed tables based on consultation with the service “to have a reduced impact on our fire appliances”.
“We continue to regularly engage with AT about the impact of traffic calming measures on our response ability and times, in addition to proposed changes to individual routes across Auckland,” Devlin said.
“Factors contributing to response times are complex and different for various regions, districts, and brigades. They include urban growth, longer drive times as well as traffic calming measures.”
Devlin said they work with councils across the country when traffic calming measures are being considered “to ensure they understand the complexities”.
Swarbrick, who has close ties with firefighters in her electorate, said it was “incumbent on Fenz to allay the concerns” of the frontline firefighters concerned about the issue.
“I think it’s just a matter of sunlight being the best disinfectant here. The fact that this report had to be OIAs and it wasn’t a matter of public discourse in the first place does allow for these concerns to fester into something broader and a sense people are being ignored.
“You probably wouldn’t find any Aucklanders who would disagree with the statement that AT has a lot of work to do when it comes to public communications about the stuff that they’re undertaking.”
Asked if AT’s alteration of streetscapes was becoming excessive, Swarbrick questioned whether the necessary communication to the public on such projects was adequate.
“I think that it’s really hard to have a social licence to do something, when, you know, people don’t feel as though they are actually being involved in that decision-making process.
“I think the problem is too that frontline firefighters don’t necessarily feel as though they are being represented by those at the top of the food chain, which then means there’s that disconnect.”
The 2022 Fenz report obtained via official information and passed on to the Herald is titled “Traffic calming and effective response speeds”.
It outlines that Fenz has “legitimate concerns about how AT and Waka Kotahi’s [NZ Transport Agency] changes in roading strategies will affect emergency response”, but ultimately concludes there is insufficient data to determine if “emergency response access and speeds are likely to be affected”.
In the summary and recommendations of the report, is the need to alter Fenz’s equipment to adapt to changing New Zealand roads via traffic calming measures.
“There could be changes to appliance maintenance or how appliances are used,” the report states.
“There could also be temporary modifications to the roading strategy to accommodate the legacy Fenz fleet. In the long-term, Fenz will likely need to adjust the types of equipment that is procured to ensure that it is more manoeuvrable and adaptable to the changes to New Zealand’s cities and roads.”
Other concerning details raised in the report is the risk of Fenz staff being injured by traffic calming installations - with one example of a firefighter hitting their head on the ceiling of the appliance and sustaining an injury.
The report suggests Fenz should work with AT to ensure appliance drivers know what are safe speeds to “traverse” the bumps and full information on the “location and type of traffic calming devices on the network”.
Tom Dillane is an Auckland-based journalist covering local government and crime as well as sports investigations. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is deputy head of news.
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