Streets for People - Aranui Connections

Christchurch City Council was successful in receiving funding from the Streets for People programme. ViaStrada provided the technical advice and design from the initial concept, and scheme through to detailed design to make Aranui streets more people friendly. This project was rolled out using a tactical urbanism approach to implement changes in a cost-effective manner for the community to adapt to and provide feedback on.

Streets for People projects were very heavy on public engagement, this was completed through community days, design jams with local school children, multiple stages of public consultation preconstruction, throughout the trial period and after construction.

The design jams involved working with the school children over multiple days to get their thoughts on street interventions to make it safer for pedestrians and people on bikes in the area. The main theme was cars needed to slow down and “chill” out. 

Scheme designs went through multiple iterations, with interim measures installed rather than hard infrastructure. Treatments included speed bumps, four raised crossings and traffic calming at intersections with the installation of flexible posts and planter boxes along the edge of the footpath in front of local shops, which also helped with security. DCM Urban provided illustrations to show treatments at various locations for us throughout the engagement.

Throughout the trial period monitoring was completed and there was a decrease in car trips taken to school as well as a decrease in speeds throughout Aranui. Motorist speeds along Hampshire Street reduced by 12.4 km/h since the installation of the vertical deflection which has resulted in the community requesting more throughout the area.

After the trial period and Community Board resolution, the project retained 4 raised crossing locations, 13 intersections narrowing using concrete islands including vertical deflection (watt’s profile humps) and another 5 watts profiles humps throughout Aranui.