Auckland Transport has been accused of failing to acknowledge
long-held safety concerns of local politicians whose turf
covers a railway crossing where a disabled woman was hit by a
train.
Albert-Eden Local Board member Graeme East told Auckland
Council's transport committee on Wednesday that it was not
even given a receipt of a notice of motion it passed more
than two years ago, calling for the progressive separation of
roads from railway lines at all level crossings.
He said his board, whose territory includes the crossing at
Morningside where the woman was hit by a freight train after
her wheelchair jammed in railway tracks last week, passed the
resolution at its first meeting after being elected in late
2010.
Yet it was only after last week's drama that he became aware
of a draft report in which Auckland Transport has identified
Morningside as the third most urgent crossing for removal out
of 23 across the region.
Despite plans for more frequent services after electric
trains start running next year, and hence a greater risk of
accidents, he said the only financial allocation in the
council transport organisation's long-term plan was $1.06
million for detailed investigations not due to start for at
least 16 months.
He asked the councillors to call on their own officers for a
report to bring that funding forward by a year, and to
allocate "a meaningful amount of money so we can start
knocking these [crossings] off one by one", even though the
overall cost could be more than $100 million. He also called
for early discussions about equitable funding support from
the Government's Transport Agency and KiwiRail, which says it
is not responsible for building road bridges over railway
lines or passes under them.
The committee agreed to ask council staff to report on
strategic priorities for level crossings to enable informed
decisions to be made in annual planning deliberations.
Auckland Transport spokeswoman Sharon Hunter said that her
organisation had been working on a report since early 2011,
and had been in consultations with KiwiRail about it, but had
yet to release a final version.
She could not say why it had not acknowledged the local
board's resolution, but said it would brief that body before
releasing the report.
- Mathew Dearnaley of the New Zealand Herald
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