Cambridge Connections Transport Plan executive director Katie Mayes with a copy of the brochure being distributed to Cambridge and Maungatautari residents.
Cambridge residents will have no excuse to have not engaged with Waipā District Council’s reset Cambridge Connections Transport Plan, says mayor Mike Pettit.
Mike Pettit
Cambridge Connections Transport Plan executive director Katie Mayes outlined a plan to collect a long list of solutions to the town’s transport problems at February’s Strategic Planning and Policy Committee. The communications and engagement plan includes a letterbox drop to every household in the Cambridge and Maungatautari wards, posters with QR codes at bus stops, newspaper advertising and an online presence.
The data collection phase runs until March 1
It is a concerted effort to improve communication following the “blue blob” disaster when residents learned, through the Cambridge News, that their homes could be in the path of a road to a new Waikato River bridge.
Susan O’Regan
“Many of us have given people a damn good listening to,” Pettit said,
“There will be no excuse for people not to feed into this, so the challenge for the community is to engage, as this is going to affect us all. Get into this and get engaged.”
Pettit paid tribute to his predecessor, Susan O’Regan, for leading the reset last electoral term.
“I’d rate our progress nine out of 10, there’s always room for improvement.”
Cambridge Connections Transport Plan executive director Katie Mayes.
The council is inviting submissions on how to solve the problems of high growth and impacts on transport networks, through and across town traffic and heavy vehicles accessing through residential areas and the town centre, and limitations and resilience of river crossing.
Mayes said the council hoped to collect a long list of community ideas, supplement them with community input, and bring them back to the Strategic Planning and Policy meeting on April 1.
She is starting with 500 pieces of feedback sent to the council before the project was reset following the blue blob controversy.
Mike Montgomerie
“Everyone will see that list,” she said. “We will then start to filter, and filter and filter until we get to a draft programme at the end of the year,” she said.
Mayes, who spent eight years working for NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, said the council was using standard methodology for an NZTA business case including an early assessment sifting tool known by its initials – East.
The timeline includes a council workshop in March.
“We will develop a more granular assessment criteria to be able to take it to the next phase,” Mayes said. “To get us to that long list there’s really extensive community engagement proposed. We are going to get really good reach.”
Chair Mike Montgomerie described the community engagement as an important step for Cambridge Connections.
Clare St Pierre
Pirongia ward councillor Claire St Pierre was concerned with outcomes for emergency services.
“Fire and ambulance are concerned that sometimes the sheer gridlock, the amount of congestion that’s on those main routes really extends the length of time that they can get to an incident, which is a concern to them and could even have negative outcomes for the people involved,” St Pierre said.
“We’ve specifically committed to engaging with the emergency services to make sure that their voices are heard through this phase of the project.”
Dennis Hunt – Cambridge Chief Fire Officer
Cambridge chief fire officer Dennis Hunt complained to Cambridge Community Board in December that speed humps were impacting on emergency response times.
Cambridge ward councillor Roger Gordon asked for origin and destination data collected by navigation system TomTom to be made available to the public as part of the project.
He also suggested a whiteboard be erected in a public place to collect feedback, as had once occurred in Empire Street for another project.
“We will certainly try and pick it up,” Mayes said.
Cambridge Connections Transport Plan executive director Katie Mayes with a copy of the brochure being distributed to Cambridge and Maungatautari residents.
