Three hit by buses after route made two-way

File Photo / Herald on Sunday

Wellington City Council is considering employing more staff to patrol its new, two-way route through the central city after a third pedestrian was hit last night.

A woman in her 20s was hospitalised after being knocked down and seriously injured by a bus at about 7pm last night, near the Taranaki intersection with Manners Street, which on Sunday opened as a two-way street for the first time.

She is now in a stable condition, a Wellington Hospital spokeswoman said today.

On Tuesday, a woman received moderate injuries after being hit by a bus and on Monday, a teenager escaped uninjured after being hit by a bus.

Council spokesman Richard MacLean said the council knew there were likely to be problems, hence a $70,000 marketing campaign to promote the changes.

"We certainly anticipated we might have some people being hit, which is precisely why we're doing all this advertising and stuff. So it's certainly not unanticipated but we would definitely prefer that it wasn't happening," he said.

"Students employed to publicise and patrol the new route had already had their contracts extended and more may be hired. Obviously you can't supervise pedestrians but...what we've just got to do is just get out there and have as much visibility as possible," Mr MacLean told NZPA.

The council was also considering temporarily slowing buses down even more than their 30km/h limit and would be talking to police and bus companies today about the problem.

Their slow speed was likely to be why this week's accidents had not been more severe, he said.

But both Wellington's mayor Celia Wade-Brown and the bus company chief said today that pedestrians must take responsibility for their own safety.

"I really urge people to look both ways on the changed traffic plans; Manners Street, Willis Street. I urge people to look out for themselves and also it would be great if people would keep an eye out for each other," Ms Wade-Brown told Radio NZ.

Go Wellington bus company chief operating officer Zane Fulljames said camera footage this week showed people constantly taking risks when crossing the new route -- even after looking both ways.

He had spoken to drivers involved in two incidents and was confident both were driving safely and within the lowered speed limit.

People often had a perception that city buses were speeding as they were noisy when accelerating between stops. But the average speed in the city was from 17km/h to 25km/h.

Mr MacLean said the council had already done "extensive work" to publicise the new system with a "heck of a lot" of signage and pedestrians needed to look both ways.

"Obviously we just really, really want people to try and pause before they cross the road in the area.

"It can be a fairly hair-raising situation in the CBD sometimes, I mean, just you know, large amount of traffic combined with a large amounts of pedestrians. Inevitably, there are going to be accidents."

This was especially so when people walked out on roads distracted by their cellphones or iPods.

- NZPA