Hanley’s has had enough - Intersection tragedy waiting to happen

Hanley’s Farm residents are warning it’s only a matter of time until there’s a serious accident at their entrance intersection with the 100km/hr State Highway, and they’re urging NZTA (New Zealand Transport Agency) to lower the highway speed limit before tragedy occurs.

Resident Marc Hamilton received a huge response from concerned residents after urging them in a community Facebook post recently to report the dangers online to NZTA and sharing the link to do so.

A large number said they had responded with a lot of strong feeling evident. One woman says she’s getting a group together to gather signatures and make recommendations to the Queenstown Lakes District Council and kickstart a petition on the issue.

Hamiton says the delays accessing the State Highway safely from the Hanley’s entrance are forcing many people to drive directly to Jack’s Point, internally from Hanley’s, to access the State Highway, which is causing huge delays there too. “The traffic is often backed up all the way from the State Highway to the Jack’s Point Pharmacy,” Hamilton says.

He and other Hanley’s residents have witnessed “a lot of close calls” as people try to nip out on to the State Highway into a line of vehicles travelling at 100km/hr.

“I’ve contacted NZTA about this a number of times. People are pulling out in front of traffic travelling at this speed. It’s an accident waiting to happen,” he says.

He’s also asked the Police to maintain a presence at the intersection whenever possible between 8am and 9am as “people are getting so impatient that they’ll pull out in front of a car”, he says.

With so many ‘home and income’ properties having three vehicles the queues are getting longer, and Hamilton and others are extremely concerned about what’s going to happen once Homestead Bay’s extra 2800 homes are built.

“A lot of people out here are pretty rarked up about it,” he says.

He and others want to see the State Highway speed reduced to at least 80km/hr, even 70km/hr, a merging slip lane turning left on to the highway at the Hanley’s exit and even large lit, electronic warning signs for those approaching the intersection on the State Highway.

Now a Jack’s Point resident, Guy Hughes says he pushed NZTA to get the highway speed reduced about three to four years ago, a few years after his family were one of the first to live at Hanley’s Farm.

“I urged them to lower the speed to 80km/hr from the Devil’s Staircase to reduce the impact of accidents. I was quite firm,” Hughes says. “It was extremely frustrating. I felt like NZTA, as an organisation, was deaf and completely in denial that sticking a suburb off a State Highway where numbers were growing and growing wasn’t safe.” He claims there had been a number of crashes there that hadn’t been reported even back then, which he informed local NZTA staff about.

“Someone could die at that intersection if something’s not done,” Hughes says.

In the meantime, those concerned are urging people to slow down coming from Jack’s Point and not pull out onto the highway in front of traffic if there’s not enough room.

A spokesperson for NZTA says they’re aware of the concerns about access to State Highway 6-Kingston Road from neighbouring developments. “We are looking at what we can do to respond to these concerns,” he says. “We will also be replying to those who have contacted us directly with their concerns.”

- See next week’s edition for NZTA’s full response