Over 200 sign petition to remove Aramoho speed bumps, council to discuss

Wayne Hooper's petition to remove the speed bumps on Somme Parade has received more than 200 signatures. Photo / Fin Ocheduszko Brown

A petition to remove the speed bumps outside the Aramoho Shopping Centre has gained traction, with the Whanganui District Council set to discuss their future soon.

Since it was created on May 1, more than 200 people have signed the petition to remove the speed bumps near the corner of Somme Pde and Kaikokopu Rd.

Kaikokopu Rd residents David McCormack and Wayne Hooper, who started the petition, believed they should be removed for good.

“It’s getting out of shape,” McCormack said.

“You can see the [drivers] that are pissed off with it, they don’t want to stop any more nor do they care about their suspension – it’s just nuts.

“These things take time but time is not what we need, we want them gone; we are sick and tired of it.”

Hooper said the speed bumps meant he and his neighbours were unintentionally woken by large trucks in the early morning.

“This place is actually very, very busy with trucks but you can’t blame them, it is their job,” Hooper said.

The speed bumps were originally installed as a safety measure during the December 2023 Somme Pde slip repair work.

Council transportation manager Mark Allingham said the speed bumps remained after the work finished to slow traffic and improve safety for pedestrians.

“This is a busy spot with two new bus stops and a shared pathway – pedestrian and cycle traffic across busy Somme Pde is only expected to increase,” Allingham said.

He said the council’s long-term intention was to create a pedestrian refuge island at that location to improve safety for people crossing the road; however, funding was needed from NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.

Hooper and McCormack said the speed bumps issue had been going on for too long.

“It has been so long, it’s been years of it. When they put them in, it was only temporary and we were going, ‘we can handle the jandal’, but years later it’s like, ‘come on man, this is getting out of shape’,” McCormack said.

Hooper expected the petition to reach 250 responses by the time the organisers met with the council on May 20.

Allingham said sections of the speed cushion were recently removed by an unknown person and had been reinstalled by contractors.

McCormack said the speed bumps near the Aramoho Shopping Centre are causing traffic congestion. Photo / Fin Ocheduszko Brown

Hooper’s wife, Cherie, disagreed that the speed bumps provided a safer environment.

“It doesn’t make it safer because by having different traffic flowing across the same road, one’s going slow and one’s going fast, it’s harder,” she said.

“If they are all going at the same speed, you can predict but some stop, some just breeze over, it’s making it trickier to judge.

“You can’t decide what people are doing.”

Downer road safety engineer Roger McLeay said his “concerns are more the traffic safety, slowing the traffic down”.

“There’s other ways to slow the traffic down to make it safer for the pedestrians to get across the street.”

McCormack said he felt sorry for Aramoho residents who had to slow down twice in quick succession because of the “unavoidable” speed bumps and the railway line 200m apart.

“It congests up traffic around the shopping centre,” he said.

Hooper said he was also concerned about the impact on emergency services.

“They have to slow right down as well, adding 20, 30 seconds to their response time, it could make all the difference,” Hooper said.

The Hoopers and McCormack disagreed with the idea of a pedestrian refuge island and wanted complete removal.

They will present the petition to the council on May 20.