Transportation engineering

The University of Canterbury introduced a new course this year - Transport Design Project. Industry mentors assisted groups of four students during the course of the project. Jeanette Ward and Axel Wilke mentored one of the groups.

Following a fatality at the pedestrian crossing facility at the intersection of Wainoni Road and Bickerton Street, ViaStrada was requested to investigate options for improving the roading environment.

The client wanted to see how the existing parking supply was on the street. This gave maximum information on the impact of different cycle lane schemes for this stretch of road. Very complex data such as parking time restrictions, bus stops, taxis and unrestricted parking is clearly and accurately shown on the simple plan.

The client wanted to show that they had made provision for various on street parking demands in FiveMile. This included short and long term parking and included loading zones. Added to this was the identification of ramps to and from the off street underground parking.

ViaStrada was engaged by Tauranga City Council (TCC) to undertake the scheme development of the arterial road (Te Okuroa Drive) servicing the Wairakei (stage 1), and subsequently Te Tumu (stage 2), urban expansion in Papamoa as envisaged by Western Bay of Plenty's SmartGrowth strategy.

A typical cross section for Te Okuroa Drive had already been determined; ViaStrada's brief was to design all the intersections and determine the location of the u-turning bays. The major part of this exercise was to determine the most appropriate intersection control for each location, including bus priority measures.

ViaStrada has been commissioned to design provisions for cyclists in some of the more challenging locations of Dunedin's arterial network. Dunedin City Council picked us as their preferred consultant because of our nationally recognised expertise in this area.

The Avonside / Fitzgerald project has two 'drivers':

The Fitzgerald bridge over the Avon River needs to be earthquake strengthened, and the adjacent intersection has a high crash record.

Our team has undertaken the traffic engineering design work for the intersection upgrade.

Traffic signal improvements to the Kawarau Falls single lane bridge, to meet Transit NZ safety and efficiency requirements, to allow the side road to access the State Highway for the development of the Kawarau Falls project.

When the new Bunnings site on Marshland Road was developed, traffic signals were needed to ensure safe site access. ViaStrada was engaged to undertake the design of traffic signals for the new Bunnings site, and upgrading an adjacent existing signalised intersection (Briggs / Lake Terrace / Marshland) that is affected by the development.

SH7 and Fairhall Road intersection design for the Kaiata industrial park. This required a specialist intersection design catering for heavy commercial vehicles (HCVs) on a high speed State Highway environment.