In November 2024 the Rodney First Political Party blocked voted to push through a speed bump on Coatesville Riverhead Highway. This speed bump, if the project goes ahead, will cost an estimated $666,000 which means this might potentially be the most expensive speed bump in Auckland and even the most expensive speed bump in all of New Zealand!
This Project has been up for discussion for some time now, with the original approved project being a normal Pedestrian Crossing (September 2022) and after the design changed to a raised pedestrian crossing (October 2023) it then went to a more in depth 
design phase where Auckland Transport discovered that a Speed Bump or Raised Pedestrian Crossing would be unsafe at this location on Coatesville Riverhead Highway and asked the Rodney Local Board, who are decision makers for this project, to consider changing the requirements via a new resolution and allowing Auckland Transport to design an appropriate pedestrian crossing in Coatesville for Pedestrians to cross over Coatesville Riverhead Highway (July 2024).
Following the news that a speed bump wasn’t appropriate for this location the board agreed to change the project from a Speed bump pedestrian crossing to an Appropriate Pedestrian Crossing and the final designs got underway, costing the Rodney local board a yet to be disclosed amount of money for detailed design work, for an appropriate pedestrian crossing. The final design for an appropriate crossing ended up being a Signalised Pedestrian Crossing (or traffic lights) the same as what we have outside the beer spot in Huapai. The benefit of a Signalised crossing is that there are no impediments to vehicles unless there is a pedestrian wanting to cross and when a pedestrian does want to cross the Highway… traffic stops in both directions making it the safest option in my opinion and experience. The signalised crossing was going to be within the allocated budget of $541,000 but the speed bump option will cost an estimated $125,000 extra bringing the project total to $666,000.
The detailed design drawings for the traffic light option were presented to the Rodney Local Board in our October meeting which appears to have upset a group of people and triggered an email from the Coatesville Ratepayers Group who contacted the board expressing their displeasure a few days later. That email was basically quite clear that they really want a speed bump in the Coatesville village. I have since taken the time to listen to the concerns raised by the group and to try and understand why they specifically want a speed bump on the highway and One of the reasons mentioned was that more people drive through the village along the Highway than people living in the village. There was a sense of entitlement from some who felt that people shouldn’t be allowed to drive through “their village” and that a speed bump would help deter people using the Highway though Coatesville.
If you don’t want people to drive past your house, why would you choose to live near a major Highway? What has alarmed me even more is that an opinion expressed by Auckland Transport representatives suggested that we should ignore the needs of the people who use the Highway for transport purposes and give extra weight to the opinion of the people who live on or near the Highway despite the number of daily road users being higher than the number of people who live on or near the Highway.
So where are things at now? Following the resolution in November, Auckland Transport are now required to spend more of your money and allocate staff time to work on the speed bump design which includes consulting with people who live near the Highway but not with the road users who drive the Highway which seems unfair in my opinion.
If you want to provide feedback about the proposed speed bump on Coatesville Riverhead Highway in Coatesville, please email your democratically elected representatives. If you live in the Rodney local board area you have 9 elected members on the Local Board and 1 elected Councillor. You can also present in person at any of the Rodney local board business meetings by requesting a 3-minute speaking slot on the day. Our next Rodney Local Board business meeting will be held on the 19th February in the Kumeu meeting room at 10am.
For any more information or just to chat about this or any other transport issues in Rodney feel free to reach out via Facebook or email me at Geoff.upson@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz
