Traffic lights, cycle crossing added to already-busy Whanganui street

New signals being installed for a cycleway crossing Whanganui's Glasgow St will be linked with rail signals. Photo / Bevan Conley

[Another set of traffic lights has been installed on Glasgow St to accommodate the Te Tuaiwi cycleway.

From Dublin St to London St the 3m wide concrete path follows a railway line and at Glasgow St cyclists will need lights to stop the cars on the busy stretch which has a corner, a major intersection and entrances to two supermarkets.

The new signals will be finished in three weeks, weather permitting, Whanganui District Council senior roading engineer Brent Holmes said, and will be linked with rail signals.

Pedestrians and cyclists will push a button to cross, and their action will be monitored by an infra-red camera. If they cross before the lights activate their crossing phase the camera will cancel the next crossing phase, to avoid unnecessary hold-ups to traffic.

When a train is going by red lights will stop road traffic, and the signals will tell cyclists to cross.

The new lights aren't the only change to that busy Whanganui street. In February 2020 the Glasgow St/Victoria Ave intersection will be upgraded, Holmes said.

Its layout will be changed and new signals installed. The flush median between Victoria Ave and the rail line will also be remarked, to better channel traffic.

The changes are needed because of the cycleway crossing, and because of growing traffic volumes.

The council is progressively upgrading Whanganui traffic signals with new technology, Holmes said.

All the upgraded intersections are monitored 24/7 by the Wellington Traffic Control Operation Centre. It detects faults and, if required, adjusts the programmes running the signals.