Roundabouts on Brownston Street requested by the Wānaka Community Board (WCB) to help drivers negotiate two key town intersections will not be installed.

At last week’s WCB meeting (May 12), elected members were advised the temporary mountable roundabouts would not proceed as there were “constraints on the site which would make temporary roundabouts difficult to install”.

In a resolution passed by the WCB in March, council staff were tasked with investigating and implementing ‘if possible’ temporary roundabouts at the intersections of Brownston and McDougall and Brownston and Dungarvon Streets.

It was anticipated these intersections were likely to become more congested with redirected traffic caused by the temporary closure of lower Ardmore Street where construction of stage 2 of the Wānaka lakefront development opposite Pembroke Park is underway.

But according to the WCB chair’s report, a consultant traffic engineer, who conducted a desktop study for the QLDC, said both intersections were constrained by traffic islands (safe pedestrian crossing points) and turning bays.

The engineer said the installation of temporary roundabouts would likely see the removal of the turning lanes which may cause the intersection to perform less efficiently. 

Also, “a temporary roundabout would not be able to be installed without a business case or a request for additional funding in order to support the opportunity and allow time to investigate further, complete a design, attain planning approvals and carry out the physical works”, the WCB was advised. 

QLDC spokesperson Sam White then revised that statement later to say a business case was not required for temporary works but an investigation would need to be funded.

The board was also advised the QLDC’s Parks and Reserves department does “not currently have additional budget available to financially support the option to further investigate temporary roundabouts”.

When asked why a business case or an investigation was needed when a temporary roundabout at Brownston/McDougall Street had already been successfully trialed by council in 2019, Sam said there was no temporary roundabout installed in 2019.

“The temporary roundabout which was originally planned [in 2019] did not go ahead,” he said. 

“Although temporary treatments for different intersections were discussed in the planning phase for this [2019] trial, no temporary mountable roundabouts were installed. Instead, other measures were approved to divert traffic during the activations, such as signage and cones,” he said. 

A temporary roundabout at the Brownston/MacDougall Street intersection was included in QLDC planning in the 2019 CBD road closure trials. IMAGE: QLDC

In a report published after the 2019 trial, the New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA) referred to a temporary roundabout and included a copy of a diagram supplied by the QLDC depicting a roundabout at that intersection.

Sam said the diagram in the NZTA report was outdated and indicated instead a QLDC Facebook post published almost four weeks before the trial began which depicted a diagram without a roundabout.

Sam could not account for why at least two written public submissions to council after the trial referred to “the success of the roundabout” or why both WCB member Ed Taylor and deputy mayor Calum MacLeod recalled the 2019 temporary roundabout when they spoke at the March 31 WCB meeting this year.

Referring to the 2019 trial Calum said: “We did put in roundabout features which functioned really well,” adding the roundabout was defined by temporary cones “bolted to the floor”. 

Ed, who reworded the original March 31 resolution to more strongly support the installation of the roundabouts, registered his disappointment with the council’s response to the board this year.

“I don’t think [the council’s] answer was satisfactory,” he said. 

He recalled the council’s previous temporary roundabout experiment (he remembers driving through it) and had expected this roundabout to be reinstated at the very least.

“We had one there before during the trials of the road closure and it worked brilliantly and I thought it was such a great opportunity to put that back in.”

Ed said traffic pressure points around town have already been identified and now is a good time to resolve the congestion while there are fewer visitors in town.

“I believe it's a huge opportunity lost.”