Mays Road and Grey Street, Onehunga – Intersection Safety Improvements Mays Road and Grey Street, Onehunga – Intersection Safety Improvements

Proposal status: Feedback closed

Reference number: 12571094

Proposal outcome

In September 2022, we proposed changes to improve safety at the Mays Road and Grey Street intersection. After reviewing all the feedback we received, we are proceeding with the work as proposed.

These works will help support Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland’s Vision Zero goal.

What happens next

We anticipate the changes will be constructed in June 2023. If there any changes to the construction timeframe, we will update this webpage. We will also be in touch with local residents and businesses before any construction takes place.

Community feedback

Thank you for helping us make better decisions for your neighbourhood, informed by your local knowledge.

Most respondents told us that this proposal would benefit their community, with many sharing their stories of near misses at the intersection and supporting the proposed safety improvements. Here is a summary of your feedback and our responses to community questions:

Design

Concern that the roundabout will attract more traffic and rat runners to Mays Road.
While the proposed changes will improve traffic flow, the raised zebra crossings and roundabout will encourage slow speeds and a safer intersection for everybody. The main aim of this project is to improve safety at the intersection and lower the risk of death and serious injury in the event of a crash.
Request that all or some of the pedestrian crossings are removed from the design as they will cause traffic build up and there aren’t enough pedestrians crossing here to justify them.
When we conducted a pedestrian survey, we found that many people cross the road here, and the proposed changes will provide a safe crossing location on each leg of the intersection. If we removed some, but not all, of the crossings from the design, we would be increasing the chance of a pedestrian being involved in a crash at that location.

The raised crossings will also slow down drivers, making the intersection safer for everyone. Having 4 raised crossings means lower speeds on all legs of the intersection.
Suggestion to move the crossing on Curzon Street closer to the intersection.
We’ve tried to locate the crossing on Curzon Street as close as possible to the intersection, but existing driveways and large trees have stopped us from being able to locate the crossing any closer.
Suggestion to extend the berm on the corners where AT has painted white road markings.
Unfortunately, we’re unable to extend the berm or provide traffic islands on the corners due to the angles at which the roads meet and the lack of available land. We’ve included the painted areas on the corners to allow larger vehicles to turn around the corner without driving over the berm or footpath.
Suggestion to remove the mountable apron (the flatter outer edge of the roundabout) from the roundabout because it allows larger vehicles to speed through, and Mays Road is not a bus route.
We’ve proposed the mountable apron so that large vehicles can drive through the intersection without driving over the berms and endangering pedestrians on the footpaths. Large vehicles will be unable to speed through because of the raised crossings.
Suggestion to install additional warning signage of potential hidden queues around the sharp corner on Greys Street. If not adopted, is the single sign warning of the upcoming raised crossing at the sharp corner going to be sufficient to prevent accidents?
We’ll investigate this and install additional signs if necessary.
Concern that cyclists have not been considered in this design, which means this design is not in line with Vision Zero.
Mays Road and Grey Street is currently not on a cycle route, and we encourage cyclists to choose other routes nearby. However, if cycling lanes are installed later, we’ll be able to easily update the intersection to accommodate cyclists.
Concern that the proposed design doesn’t account for the shape of the intersection (not a + shape), and it should be a give way intersection instead of a roundabout.
The existing intersection is considered high risk because there’s a significant crash history that shows many drivers have failed to give way to approaching traffic. Leaving the intersection how it is (as a give-way intersection) will not reduce the risk of future death and serious injury crashes.

The proposed design will greatly reduce the risk of future crashes resulting from failing to give way. It’ll also lower speeds, reducing the risk of harm or injury from any potential crashes.

Parking

Concern over parking removal.
We understand that the removal of parking is inconvenient, so we’ve only removed parking where it’s necessary to improve visibility and prevent parked vehicles from blocking the intersection.
Concern that parking removal will lead to higher speeds as drivers will see a clear road with more space.
We’re proposing raised crossings to reduce this risk of increased speeds.
Request for more parking bays in the berm, especially near the shop.
Installing additional parking bays in the berm is outside the scope and budget of this project, and additional parking bays near the intersection would decrease the safety of the roundabout. We’ve relocated the existing parking bay to help retain parking as close as possible to the shop in a location where it will not impact nearby driveways or visibility of crossing pedestrians.
Concern that the loss of parking will lead to more parking on Curzon Street, which is already regularly full of parked vehicles.
We’ve tried to minimise the loss of parking where possible. There is still on-street parking available on Mays Road and Grey Street a little further away from the intersection.
Concern that people will be encouraged to park on the sharp corner of Greys Street, making it a more dangerous blind corner.
We’ll review parking around this bend.

Wider area

Suggestion to close Grey Street where it joins with Mays Road, removing the intersection which we have already identified as unsafe.
Closing roads can have adverse effects on Tāmaki Makaurau’s wider transport network and should generally not be the first option that’s considered. What we’ve proposed should address the safety issues without needing to close a road.
Concern that the proposed changes would not be sufficient to slow drivers approaching the intersection on Mays Road. Request to install speed bumps on Mays Road and/or Grey Street.
This project is aimed at improving the safety of the intersection so installing additional speed bumps on Mays Road and Grey Street is outside the scope of this work. However, we’ll keep this suggestion in mind for future works in the area.
Request to upgrade alternative intersections first: Mays Road/Mount Smart Road, Grey Street/Victoria Street, Grey Street/Onehunga Mall, Arthur Street/Onehunga Mall, Curzon Street/Mount Smart Road, Grey Street/Alfred Street.
We understand that there are a lot of intersections that need upgrading, but we must start with the intersections that have been identified as high risk. We’ll take the suggested intersections into account for future work and look for opportunities to make improvements to safety wherever possible.
Concern that the changes are unnecessary and a waste of money because there’s no issue with this intersection the way it is.
The proposed changes are necessary because there’s an identified risk to pedestrians at this intersection. There have been 12 crashes at this intersection between 2016 and 2020, all associated with drivers failing to give way. There are also no existing safe crossing facilities for pedestrians.
General concern that the raised pedestrian crossings everywhere in Auckland are too high and too sharp.
We’ve recently revised the grades and heights of all future raised crossings. The proposed changes at this intersection will have ramp grades and heights that slow traffic but do not cause unnecessary discomfort.

Consultation process

Concern over our reference to the inconvenience of removing parking spaces, as parking of private assets on public roads is not the responsibility of AT. Concern that because of this, we’re ignoring Vision Zero.
We’ve removed parking where required to ensure clear visibility of the intersection and crossing pedestrians to meet Tāmaki Makaurau’s Vision Zero goal. While we prioritise safety, we do understand that parking removal can be inconvenient for some people and therefore try to minimise it where it will not compromise safety.
Concern that Kāinga Ora properties in the area were not contacted.
As part of our consultation process, we mailed letters to the occupiers of Kāinga Ora properties in the area and contacted Kāinga Ora directly.
Concern that the consultation process was too short.
We usually find that 2 weeks is a sufficient length of time for projects like this one as respondents rarely provide feedback after the first week. In this case, because we received a significant amount of feedback in the second week, we left the survey open for 3 additional days (over the weekend) in case there were any late responses. We didn’t receive any late responses.

We also provide additional contact details on our letters in case people do have any concerns after the consultation close date.

We're proposing improvements in your area

As part of our work to improve road safety, we are proposing changes at the Mays Road and Grey Street intersection. We ask for just a few minutes of your time to give us your feedback.

We are proposing to:

Upgrade the existing stop-controlled intersection to a roundabout with raised pedestrian crossings on all approaches to the intersection. The roundabout would have low edges that can be driven over by larger vehicles like trucks and buses.
Relocate the existing parking bay outside 33 Mays Road to 35 Mays Road. This would prevent drivers from entering or exiting the parking bay directly from the intersection, making it safer. Relocating the parking bay also means people can cross the road closer to the shop.
Install traffic islands, to separate the lanes of traffic, as drivers enter and exit the roundabout.
Paint broken yellow lines to improve visibility at the intersection. This will remove 23 on-street parking spaces.
Install tactile pavers, which are yellow guidance paving markers to help visually impaired people find their way to crossings and safely across the road.
Install new signage and paint new road markings to support the changes.

Download the proposal drawing for Mays Road and Grey Street (PDF 642KB)

How this will benefit your neighbourhood

The proposed changes would create a safer intersection for everyone as they would:

Slow motorists to a safer speed.
Improve visibility between motorists approaching the intersection.
Raise pedestrians crossing the road to be at eye-level of approaching motorists, making them easier to see.

These improvements would remove 23 on-street parking spaces near the intersection to improve visibility.

We acknowledge that this can be inconvenient, so we have minimised the removal of parking as much as possible.

What happens next

We’ll listen to all the feedback we receive, and then decide the best way to move forward.
We’ll post the outcome of this proposal and a summary of community feedback on this webpage.
We can email you the proposal outcome as soon as it’s ready – just select that option when you fill in the survey.

More information

This proposal is supported with funding from the Auckland regional fuel tax.

Onehunga: Safe with us

Auckland Transport cares for your safety. We want to make our roads safe for everyone, people walking and cycling, especially for our kids and senior citizens and people driving. Projects like this one around Mays Road and Grey Street are another step towards our goal of achieving no deaths or serious injuries on our roads. We are guided by the Vision Zero approach to transport safety, which prioritises human safety over other measures (like minor time saving).