Transport

TransportTransport Indicators (what we measure)

 

Overview

State Highway 26 through Te ArohaA good transport system is vital to the prosperity of the district. It provides the link between different areas, and gives people access to attend to their needs and activities. Transport enables businesses to access resources and markets, and provides people with social, cultural, recreational and employment opportunities. Transportation and traffic growth can result in economic, environmental, social and safety impacts that need to be managed through careful land use decisions.

While Matamata-Piako maintains an efficient transport system providing many benefits to the community, there are also several social and environmental impacts of the system.

Our Situation

Our urban areas are relatively free of significant parking, loading and vehicle access problems. However, traffic safety along state highways and arterial routes (major roads) is of concern as traffic speeds are often high due to the flat and open nature of the environment.

Traffic can generate adverse effects; particularly by creating noise. In some locations, roads with high vehicle counts affect the use, values and function of the neighbouring environment.

The District Plan requires a resource consent for any new entranceway, or where there is any increase in the character, scale or intensity of use of an existing entranceway, onto a significant road or arterial road. Since 2009/10 the trend has been for a steady decrease in the number of resource consents that include entranceways onto major roads.

Parking

New developments can create traffic problems if there is not enough parking available. In the industrial and business zones, there have been 46 resource consents granted between 2008/09 and 2018/19 for activities that did not require additional on-site parking or loading. From 2011/12 to 2013/14 all the consents granted could provide parking from existing on or off-street car parks.

Plan Change 43 – Transport, which was made operative in 2015/16, introduced an exemption for businesses in the Shopping Frontage Areas of the three main towns with a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 1 or less. Businesses with a FAR of 1 whose total floor area does not exceed the area of the lot upon which it is built are exempt from having to supply parking if they instead supplied a verandah for pedestrian shelter as it promotes a pedestrian-friendly environment. The plan change also introduced as an alternative means of compliance: the ability for business owners in lieu of providing onsite parking spaces to make a financial contribution.

Resource Consents in Industrial and Business
zones given parking exemptions
08/09 09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18 18/19
Number of consents 2 2 7 5 9 1 0 4 5 8 3

Council’s most recent annual customer survey of July 2018 showed that 25% of respondents are dissatisfied with the availability of car parks within Matamata. Further work will be done to consider future vehicle use patterns as well as the possibility of future new car parks in the town.

Signs

Signs that are poorly located can distract driver attention and restrict visibility. The number of resource consents granted that permit signage on or visible from a state highway has remained consistently low since 2007/08. The consent in 2013/14 was for a sign to be erected for a recreational club located beside the state highway in urban Morrinsville. The three consents in 15/16 related to signage at the Tatua Dairy factory, and the erection of a 6.5m cow statue and a billboard in central Morrinsville. The consent in 2017/18 was for a petrol station sign adjoining State Highway 24, near Matamata.

Number of resource consents granted which permit
signage on or visible from a State Highway
08/09 09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18 18/19
Number of consents 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 3 0 1 0

 


Traffic Accidents

The number of reported crashes causing injury on Council roads has fluctuated over the past ten years, reaching a peak of 84 in 2010/11. The overall annual trend in the years since then is for a relatively constant number of injury-causing accidents. The data from the last three years is not available due to a change in the way that accident data is now recorded.  Formerly, it was the number of all injury-causing accidents in the district that was calculated. In recent years, however, it is only accidents that cause serious injury or death that have been calculated. For 2016/17 and 2017/18 yeras, the data is not available.  However, for 2018/19 the number of injury-causing accidents dropped to 31.

 

 

The Roading Network

In 2007/08 there were 992.3km of roads in the Matamata-Piako District. This was made up of 992.3km of sealed road and 59.1km unsealed road; approximately 864 km of the roads were within the rural area and 123km in the urban areas. The length of the roading network has increased very gradually since then due to new roads being created through subdivision, mostly in urban areas.

  

Length of Roading Network (kms) 08/09 09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18 18/19
Sealed 934.5 935.7 938.9 938.9 938.9 938.9 938.9 938.9 938.9 948.9 951
Unsealed 59.1 59.1 59.1 59.1 59.1 59.1 59.1 59.1 59.1 59.1 51
Total 993.6 994.8 998.0 998.0 998.0 998.0 998.0 998.0 998.0 1008.0 1002.0

Roading Network Complaints

The number of calls received by Council regarding the roading network has decreased from the years between 2010/11 and 2014/15. However, since 2015/16, the number of calls has fluctuated, but has been much lower on average than in the years previous.

A notable percentage of all the roading calls received have been regarding damage to the road surface or potholes. Other complaints included abandoned vehicles, culvert maintenance, rubbish on roads, parking, and road signs. In 2014/15, a change in the way that data was captured for streetlight complaints meant that data was available only from late January until June 2015. Over this five month period, 99 complaints were received about streetlighting of which 93 of the calls related to maintenance. Calls regarding the roading network included requests for maintenance of footpaths, reports of damage to roads, and queries about the trial closure of a turning lane on Broadway in Matamata.

In 2016/17, 203 complaints were received about streetlighting, and in 2017/18, 189 complaints, were recorded. The few complaints that were not about maintenance related to nuisance caused by glare, damage caused by vehicle accidents and the time the streetlights were turned on or off. In 2016/17, 283 complaints were received about the roading network; the most common complaints were regarding damage to the road, hazardous or slippery material on the road surface. In 2017/18, the number of complaints dropped to 190. In 2018/19 only 133 complaints were received about streetlighting.

Due to changes introduced by the Local Government Act, information has been categorised differently from previous years. This has resulted in both a change to the roading network information that has been sourced, and also to the final figures. 2016/17 is the first full year of the new information requirements. 

 

The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is responsible for the development and maintenance of the country’s state highways. Council received no complaints between 2008/09 and 2017/18 from the NZTA.

 


What Council Is Doing

The number of vehicles on New Zealand roads has increased by 45% since 1990. This has been at the expense of public transport and other modes such as walking and cycling. The Matamata-Piako district is predominantly a rural district and in 2002 had only half a kilometre of dedicated cycle or walkways.

As of 2018/19 the total length of footpaths in the district is 196.6 kilometres, and there is 500 metres of cycleway. In addition, 11.8 kilometres of the Hauraki Rail Trail, which provides a cycleway between Thames, Te Aroha and Waihi, is in the Matamata-Piako District. In 2015/16, Council decided to extend the rail trail from Te Aroha to Matamata, and this extension is currently under construction.

There has been no Council spending on noise mitigation measures as a result of transport effects between 2008/09 and 2018/19.

Parking

New development can create parking and loading problems, and can create conflict with vehicle traffic if there are insufficient parking spaces. Council aims to encourage self sufficiency in the provision of parking spaces and to avoid problems created from insufficient parking. It does this by placing conditions on resource consents for the creation of new parking spaces, or by collecting parking contributions. In 2016/17, 136 parks were created, 51 of these at a newly consented place of assembly in Manawaru. A further 136 carparks were created at nine sites in 2017/18. 56 of the parks were located at a workshop in Matamata. In 2018/19, 173 new on-site parking spaces were created as a result of consented activities at 11 sites throughout the district. 55 of these car parks were for an upgrade and expansion of the Wairere Falls carpark.

Work carried out during Plan Change 43, the review of the Transportation section of the District Plan, in 2012/13 included a review of the town centre parking in Morrinsville, Matamata and Te Aroha. The report concluded that there is sufficient supply of on-street car parking within a short walking distance of the three town centres so as not to require on-site car parking within the “Shopping Frontage” areas of the town centres, over the next ten years. The matter of not requiring sites within the Shopping Frontage areas to supply on-site parking was included in a new “Transportation” section of the District Plan.

Other matters included in this section relate to higher thresholds for access to significant and arterial roads, and direction for Integrated Transport Assessments, which assess the wider effects of traffic predicted to result from a proposed activity.

The existing number of car parks in the District (both public and private) is not currently monitored. Only the number of car parks created as a result of development and recorded on resource consent decision reports is calculated; the number of car parks created by activities that comply with all the rules in the District Plan, and therefore do not require resource consent, is not included.

Number of parking spaces created as a
result of consented development
08/09 09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18 18/19
Number of spaces 6 35 200 111 153 87 34 129 136 136 173

Roading Development Contributions

Through the 2009–2012 LTCCP Council implemented a district-wide development contribution requirement for roading where development contributions would be paid on completion of a subdivision or development.

In 2009/10 the total of roading development contributions collected, $6,731, was low, as very few subdivisions or developments had been completed since the policy came into effect. This figure has increased since the introduction of the policy. In the three years 2016/17 through 2018/19 a total of $142,011, $439,554 and $718,455, respectively, were collected in roading contributions. There were no parking contributions collected over this period.

 

How are we Doing?

Anticipated Environmental Results

Transport

Achieved?

  • AchievingAchieving
  • Progress towards achievementProgress towards achievement
  • Not AchieveingNot Achieving
  • Not MonitoredNot Monitored
Safer and more efficient roading network Achieving
Mitigation and avoidance of the adverse effects of transportation Progress towards  achievement
Protection and enhancement of the amenity of the areas within which transportation networks operate Progress towards  achievement
More equitable funding of upgrading transportation links needed as a result of development Progress towards  achievement
Reduction of public funding of infrastructure servicing private development Progress towards  achievement
Increased utilisation of alternative transport modes, particularly cycling and walking in residential areas Not Achieveing
Increase in the number of activities which are self sufficient in terms of parking and loading space provision Not Monitored
Minimal adverse traffic safety effects from signs and advertising Achieving

Click here to learn more about District Plan Effectiveness and read the full report on Transport

 

Useful Links

Regional Land Transport Plan

Ministry of Transport

Ministry of Transport - Annual Fleet Statistics 2014

 

For More Information

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Customer Services
Matamata-Piako District Council
PO Box 266, Te Aroha 3342
Phone: 07 884 0060
Fax: 07 884 8865