Horsham Downs Road upgrades

Moving the bus stop from inside the Rototuna Shopping Centre to Horsham Downs Road will make the bus service more efficient and reliable. This change will make the area safer for everyone, including people walking through the car park. 

These allow buses to stop in the traffic lane to pick up or drop off passengers, rather than pulling off to the side, and then waiting to re-enter the traffic lane. The waiting time for vehicles behind the bus is about five seconds per passenger.  Find out more about in-lane bus stops here. 

Statistical analysis undertaken with Waikato Regional Council examining boarding and alighting times on the Comet bus service route show the figures (five seconds per bus passenger) are accurate. These figures align with Transport Research Laboratory, research report 593: Forecasting the Demand for Public Transport and Urban Bus Transport: Open All Doors for Boarding research. 

The time to wait will increase as more people use the bus, but that also means there's less congestion on the wider transport network with fewer cars on the road. 

Raised safety platforms are designed to slow vehicle speeds just enough so that when people make mistakes, the impact of a crash is less severe, or they have time to react and avoid a crash. The number and severity of crashes in Hamilton has dropped significantly in places where we have installed raised safety platforms. Find out more about raised safety platforms here. 

We’re anticipating high demand for people walking and biking in this area. An unsignalised crossing would become problematic during peak hour traffic as drivers would need to give way to people walking and biking for large periods of time. Signals allows us to control the behaviour of all road users and keep everyone moving.  

The delay to drivers from people crossing the road will be no more than 15 seconds. The crossing is designed to encourage people living nearby to walk to the Rototuna Shopping Centre instead of driving. Although the lights will cause a minor delay, the best solution to congestion is getting people out of their cars for short trips.  

Our modelling research collected prior to the roundabout upgrade suggested there would be an average travel time delay of 12.4 seconds. The new raised pedestrian crossing was also expected to add a further 1.1 seconds. 

Data collected since the upgrade was completed shows the average travel time increase is longer than the modelling predicted. This is largely because of the increased number of vehicles travelling through the roundabout since its upgrade. Other contributing factors include roadworks at Borman Road and population growth, particularly in Rototuna North. 

We know that 78% of our community support biking. 55% of people have told us they would start riding a bike, or ride a bike more often, if they felt safer on our streets. Widening and protecting the bike lanes makes our bike network safer and more accessible for people of all ages and abilities. We want everyone from ages eight to 80 to feel like they can safely ride a bike around Hamilton. Find out more about Access Hamilton, our transport strategy here. 

Transport Choices projects are funded up to 90% by the Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF), not taxpayer or road user charges. Councils fund the balance of project costs. Funding for Transport Choices is administered by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.    

The budget for this project is $1.5 million. Council’s share is 150,000.