A few months ago the NPDC had the opportunity to apply for central government funding, which was to be used for the purposes of 'innovating streets'. Innovating streets, means making them more accessible and safe for walkers and riders, people with disabilities and the elderly. It's about creating spaces for people to congregate and safely transit using their own feet or bikes more.
Inglewood was extremely fortunate - Kelly Street was chosen out of dozens of other sites around our district. The council sees Kelly Street as a great place to implement a few changes to make our town safer and more pleasant to live in. After all, there is a high school, primary school, kindy, and early child care centre on Kelly Street, along with housing and businesses.
As a school, we fully support this initiative and appreciate the mahi that has gone into concept plans from the NPDC. The plans include:
Permanent:
· Building a raised pedestrian and cycling crossing at the Miro/Kelly Street intersection. We are also investigating the possibility of a further raised pedestrian and cycling crossing across Matai Street (SH3).
Temporary:
· A protected two-lane cycleway on the north side of Kelly Street from the high school to Miro Street.
· A shared path to service all users walking and riding at low speeds is proposed on Kelly Street between Miro and Brown streets (see map below).
· Continuing the protected two-lane cycleway on the north side of Kelly Street from Brown Street to Matai Street (SH3)
These plans may also end up branching out towards the main highway and we are hopeful of some positive changes around safer crossings across Rata Street. These are really important developments, it will see the town brought closer together in a geographical sense - it will be safer for all people to move around town - eliminating some of the anxiety parents have around their kids moving around Inglewood.
this is a fabulous opportunity for Inglewood to look forward into the 2020's and make a start towards making this town safer and healthier. After all, town are for people, not cars. Remember, this is a trial - but we have to start somewhere and get the ball rolling.
Our statistics here at IPS are currently; just under half of our children either;
- bike
- scooter
- skate
- walk
- park and walk to school
Just over half come to school by a vehicle which include;
- before and after school cazre
- staff children
- diverse and complex learners
- bus
- travelling some distance
- travelling locally as they do not feel safe walking, biking, scootering etc
- travelling by vehicle because they prefer that.
We are very proud of the active enthusiasm of our children, and whanau who do bike, scooter etc and also those who have indicated they would like to bike, scooter more regularly if it was safer to do so.
We appreciate that the the new trial make take those who are driving cars a moment or two to get used to, however it would be fabulous for our village now and in the future to have safer designated cycle ways for our people on bikes to allow our younger and elderly walkers to utilize the footpaths more readily without fear of having to navigate the bikers.
Keep an eye out for various surveys coming up to have your say. Please have a think about contributing to the survey from a pedestrian or biking perspective rather than driving in a car perspective.
