Dunedin city councillors have called for the government and the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) to take a suitable level of responsibility.
Taieri MP Ingrid Leary and Mosgiel-Taieri Community Board chairwoman Rebecca Shepherd also continued their push for transport infrastructure to keep up with growth pressures in the town.
Their comments come as a proposal for an inland port near Mosgiel is being assessed through the government’s fast-track consent process.
If the Southern Link logistics park is approved, it is expected to add to traffic congestion in Mosgiel and the consent panel would consider the likely impact.
Mrs Shepherd was one person who argued Mosgiel already had a traffic volume of light vehicles and freight far exceeding what the roading infrastructure was designed for.
Cr Andrew Simms reasserted what was really needed was a heavy-traffic bypass of Mosgiel.
This should be funded by the council and NZTA as a matter of urgency, he said.
The need for a bypass was not new and was not triggered by the inland port proposal — it was identified in 2003, he said.
Port Otago, a partner in the logistics park project, has also advocated for a Mosgiel bypass and commissioned a study that suggested a route for it.
However, slides released publicly by the council after a closed workshop last week indicated transport officials have quite different priorities.
In addition to promoting tweaks to intersections at one end of town — mostly near where State Highway1 meets SH87 — the initial focus of transport officials was on walking and cycling.
This could deliver quick wins for the community, it was suggested.
Local advocates were not impressed.
‘‘Walking and cycling are the focus because they're cheap,’’ Cr Mickey Treadwell said.
He noted NZTA was required to put heavy investment into ‘‘Roads of National Significance’’ that were mostly in the North Island.
Cr Brent Weatherall said walking and cycling initiatives were appreciated, but ‘‘would do very little to address safety and congestion issues the roading network is facing now and into the future’’.
‘‘The complete lack of urgency and prioritisation shown from NZTA in the last 10 years is very disappointing and the rhetoric around last week's workshop gave me no confidence that a timely intervention is on the horizon any time soon,’’ he said.
Cr John Chambers said the workshop ‘‘certainly seemed to go in a direction that was not anticipated by councillors’’.
Information presented there showed increasing vehicle movements in Mosgiel and a lot of minor or no-injury crashes, he said.
However, it seemed other parts of New Zealand were viewed as a higher priority for investment, he said.
Cr Jo Galer said she pushed for the slides to be made public.
Mosgiel’s growth indicated the government ‘‘needs to be more flexible and spend some of our taxpayer dollars south of Christchurch’’.
Ms Leary said Gordon Rd, SH87, was never designed to function as a major freight corridor carrying more large trucks through a constrained town centre.
‘‘The narrowness of the main street already creates safety concerns for motorists, pedestrians and local businesses,’’ she said.
Incidents had included trucks swiping doors off parked vehicles, she said.
Cr Simms said the council removed carparks from close to the Gordon Rd and Factory Rd intersection in 2024 after a woman had her parked car demolished by a truck there.
The council knew of at least two residents who had their car doors wiped off in recent years while exiting their vehicles in Gordon Rd, he said.
‘‘NZTA regard these incidents as non-injury accidents when actually both drivers came within inches of being killed,’’ Cr Simms said.
Cr Doug Hall said one concern he raised during the workshop was whether some of the modelling was too focused on current pressures and existing thresholds without fully accounting for what Mosgiel could look like in 10, 20, or 30 years’ time.
‘‘If we under-forecast future demand now, we risk delivering infrastructure that is already under pressure shortly after it is built,’’ he said.
‘‘Overall, I think there is increasing attention being paid to Mosgiel’s long-term needs, but the real test will be whether planning, funding and delivery can keep up with the scale and pace of growth that is projected.’’
