Meadowcourt Drive, Manukau - Parking restrictions Meadowcourt Drive, Manukau - Parking restrictions
Proposal status: Feedback closed 26 June 2020, last updated 12 August 2020.
Reference number: BYL-434
In June 2020, we proposed changes in your area
To improve parking availability and to address access and safety issues caused by vehicles parked near intersections, bends and narrow sections of road, we proposed broken yellow lines (no stopping at all times) and P120 (2 hour) parking restrictions. Our proposal responded to requests from the community for these improvements. The roads affected by this proposal are: Meadowcourt Drive, Windoma Circle, Isola Place, Pettit Place and Reagan Road.
The proposed P120 time restrictions aim to ensure parking turnover and improve availability for residents and visitors. It will operate from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday and apply to approximately 20 spaces. The addition of broken yellow lines aims to improve access and visibility for drivers. The proposed number of spaces to be removed with the addition of broken yellow lines is approximately 27. The remaining on-street parking will continue as unrestricted.
Download the proposal drawing for Meadowcourt Drive (PDF 442KB)
Manukau: Safe with us
Auckland Transport cares for your safety. We want to make our roads safe for everyone, people walking and cycling, especially for our kids and senior citizens and people driving. Projects like this one around Meadowcourt Drive and the surrounding roads are another step towards our goal of achieving no deaths or serious injuries on our roads. We are guided by the Vision Zero approach to transport safety, which prioritises human safety over other measures (like minor time saving).
Proposal outcome
This project will proceed with a minor change to the next stage of detailed planning. As a result of community feedback, we are extending the broken yellow lines at the bottom of Meadowcourt Drive up to the driveway of 2 Meadowcourt Drive. This will improve manoeuvrability for larger vehicles, in particular waste collection vehicles, on this cul-de-sac. This will result in the removal of 1 additional parking space.
Thank you to everyone who responded to our proposal and gave us the chance to better understand your community and concerns. A summary of your feedback and our responses to community questions is below.
Download the updated drawing for this proposal (PDF 546KB)
Community feedback
Exemption from restrictions for residents
- Respondent suggested that residents be allowed park on the street overnight in restricted areas.
The P120 time restrictions will apply Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm. Outside of these hours parking in these areas is unrestricted and available for anyone to park, including residents. - Respondent requested that residents could apply for an exemption for on-street parking by their properties.
We are not including a residential exemption element to this scheme. Residential Parking Zones tend to be considered in the heritage suburbs around Central Auckland where properties do not have off-street parking or the provision to create parking on the property is limited.
Parking Availability
- Respondents were concerned about parking availability for residents who currently use on-street parking.
We appreciate your concerns however after the proposed changes are introduced most parking along these roads will still remain unrestricted and can be used by anyone including residents. On-street parking is a valuable public asset. It is available to all, including residents, on a first come first serve basis. We do not recommend that residents rely on on-street parking for any shortfall of parking for their home. On-street parking can be subject to change or completely removed to meet the wider objectives of an area.
The P120 time restrictions only applies to certain spaces Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm and will improve availability and encourage parking turnover. The addition of broken yellow lines is necessary to improve access and visibility for drivers on narrow sections of roads, on bends and near intersections. - Respondent concerned about the safety of their vehicles’ if they will have to park further away from their property.
While you will be unable to park for longer than 2 hours during the operational hours of the P120 parking restrictions, the restricted area is limited and you should be able to park relatively close to your property. If the safety of a vehicle is concerning, then we advise off street parking.
Extend the restrictions
- Respondent suggested adding broken yellow lines on both sides of the road, between 1 and 2 Pettit Place. Cars are currently parking up on the kerb in order to allow for space for vehicles, including trucks, to pass.
This project seeks to improve accessibility on Pettit Place, a narrow road, while retaining on-street parking where possible. We are already adding broken yellow lines outside 2 Pettit Place, which will improve access on this road for drivers. Increasing the extent of broken yellow lines along Pettit Place would result in an unnecessary loss of parking which would not be a desirable result. - Respondent requested broken yellow lines around 2 and 3 Meadowcourt Drive. Concerned that parked cars cause turning difficulties for waste collection vehicles, resulting in them needing to reverse out.
After considering this feedback, we will extend the broken yellow lines up to the driveway of 2 Meadowcourt Drive to improve the manoeuvrability for larger vehicles in this cul-de-sac. - Respondents concerned that cars parked too close to driveways make it difficult to exit. Requested additional broken yellow lines.
We do appreciate your concern regarding the driveway access issues however this is more effectively dealt with by our Parking Compliance team through enforcement of the existing Road User Rule around parking within 1m of a driveway. It is an offence under Paragraph 6.9 of Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004. If you feel that a vehicle is obstructing the vehicle entrance serving your property, please contact AT on 09 355 3553 and request enforcement. - Respondent recommended reducing P120 parking restrictions to P90 to be more user friendly.
While we understand the reason behind this request, P120 time restrictions allow adequate time for any visitor in a residential area to complete their visit. P120 time restrictions are also the recommended approach as per the Auckland Transport Parking Strategy. - Respondents requested additional broken yellow lines on the bend at the corner of, and along by, 17 Windoma Circle, to ease congestion and make it safer.
Broken yellow lines are only proposed around busy corners, bends, intersections and narrow roads to improve the visibility and accessibility on these roads. Our investigation confirmed that this section of Windoma Circle is approximately 8 metres wide. We consider a street to be narrow if the road is less than 6.8 metres wide. This means that we do not consider it a narrow street. At a minimum, 6.8m allows two metres worth of parking on each side of the road while retaining a 2.8 metre through lane, which emergency services have confirmed is the minimum space required for their vehicles to have access. Therefore, we are unable to proceed with your request for a broken yellow line restriction.
Traffic lights
- Respondent suggested that lights should be installed at the intersection of Meadowcourt Drive and Reagan Road to improve the safety of right turns from Meadowcourt Drive onto Reagan Road.
When we receive a request of this type, we need to complete an assessment to determine if the signalisation of an intersection is required and appropriate. Several factors are carefully considered such as traffic volume and flows, the general road environment and police reported crashes.
It is important we undertake this type of assessment because unnecessarily installing traffic signals may cause excessive delays, driver frustration and non-compliance of the signals. It can also result in an increased crash frequency, especially rear-end type crashes. Overall, we need to ensure traffic and pedestrian safety are not negatively impacted by the implementation of any changes to road design.
As part of our assessment we identified that there have been no reported crashes involving vehicles turning out of Meadowcourt Drive in the last five years. For the volume of traffic using this intersection, from an engineering perspective, this number of crashes does not present a significant safety issue. Our preliminary analysis also revealed that a traffic light control at the intersection of Reagan Road and Meadowcourt Drive would significantly affect travel times and cause unacceptable delays. Taking into consideration all factors of this assessment we are unable to proceed with this request.
Enforcement
- Respondent requested regular monitoring and enforcement in the area for some time after implementation of the parking restrictions.
Post implementation our enforcement/parking compliance team will regularly monitor the area. - Respondent queried whether cars in driveways that are parked slightly on the footpath would be ticketed.
Parking on a footpath either partially or completely is an offence under paragraph 6.14 of the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004 and vehicle in contravention can be served an infringement notice.
P120 Areas
- Respondent concerned that 4 small time restricted zones will not make any difference to the overall issue, as people will still fill the rest of the unrestricted areas.
The P120 areas are spread out along these roads, in order to ensure adequate parking availability for residents and visitors on all these roads, rather than all in one area. On-street parking is a valuable public asset. It is available to all, including residents, on a first come first serve basis. We do not recommend that residents rely on on-street parking for any shortfall of parking for their home. On-street parking can be subject to change or completely removed to meet the wider objectives of an area.
Other feedback
- Respondent concerned about students speeding around the corner of Windoma circle outside 17 Meadowcourt Drive – this might result in a fatality.
This is a high parking demand area and drivers have been observed to generally drive at appropriate speeds. If particular drivers are involved in anti-social activities, or at particular time of the day, then please contact the New Zealand Police with details to action this anti-social driver behaviour.
Next steps
These works are planned between late September and October 2020, but we will let you know if there are further changes or delays.