A plan for improving Dunedin's transport network over the next 30 years was signed off by the Dunedin City Council recently. Debbie Porteous looks at what is in it for Mosgiel.
The council's integrated transport strategy includes much for Mosgiel.
It promises to expand the inland port at North Taieri, slow traffic down in the Mosgiel town centre, and prioritise cyclists, pedestrians and public transport.
It also promises to revisit parking issues.
Most importantly, it identifies managing heavy traffic and freight through the centre of Mosgiel as the council's highest priority after safety upgrades to the city centre (which it hopes to do between 2015 and 2018).
The Mosgiel work could be funded by a mixture of council and New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) funding, although there is presently no money allocated for it in council budgets for the next 10 years.
And none will be added, until a network operating plan specifying preferred routes for pedestrian, cycle, public transport and freight networks, is finalised with the community.
The draft, although not included in the final strategy until more consultation with the community and stakeholders has been done, identifies Riccarton Rd and Dukes Rd as the priority freight routes for the future.
Other options for additional priority freight routes include the Outram-Allanton Rd, Wingatui Rd and Gladstone Rd North.
Bus routes, cycle lanes and other traffic would be prioritised on Gordon Rd south of Factory Rd and on the Bush Rd-Factory Rd corridor.
Once the plan is refined, the cost of the project will be able to be identified, allowing the council to apply to have the project included in the NZTA's three-yearly regional land transport plan, probably in the 2018-21 plan.
In the meantime, some work will go ahead.
There is money ($4.2 million) tagged, most of it from development contributions, for road improvements between Hagart-Alexander Dr/Centre Rd and Wingatui Rd, upgrading Cemetery Rd and creating a road to link Mosgiel west with Riccarton Rd East, to be done between 2015 and 2018.
The strategy also outlines plans to develop a parking management policy.
To meet the strategy's aim of increasing safety, travel choices and more vibrant centres and to support the spatial plan, the strategy says the council will move towards providing parking more on the peripheries of centres, with less on-street parking overall and more council off-street car parks.
The council also intends to work with KiwiRail and other stakeholders to look into the feasibility and merit of further developing the inland port at the Taieri Industrial Estate, so freight does not have to be trucked to and from the port through the city.
Cr Kate Wilson, who chaired the hearings subcommittee considering submissions on the integrated transport strategy, said one of the first jobs of the new Mosgiel-Taieri ward councillor and community board would be to have a series of meetings on heavy traffic in Mosgiel, to determine the community's position on it and the implications of moving it.
