A group of parents in Mount Maunganui have joined forces to raise serious concerns about their children's safety on a busy bus route.
Links Avenue, which runs parallel to State Highway 2 and has become a popular alternative for road users looking to avoid queueing traffic elsewhere, has been flagged as a potential accident blackspot.
This will be the third time parents have come forward to petition Tauranga City Council on the matter, with claims that the road is too narrow to cope with the range of traffic that uses it each day.
Parents James Petterson, Michael Dance and Karen Laidlaw have come together to arrange the petition and have voiced growing frustration over the lack of reaction from the authorities.
However, the group are hopeful that with council commissioners now in place, they will look at the problem with a fresh pair of eyes.
Jason Rendle has more reason than most to demand a reaction from council after his 11-year-old daughter Ruby was knocked into a bus on Links Avenue, and says the need for a barrier to separate pedestrians, bikes and moving vehicles on the narrow road is there for all to see.
Ruby was riding her bike when her handlebars hit another bicycle. She then went over the handlebars and hit her head on a passing bus, while her bike slid underneath it.
'If she'd been two seconds later, she would have been run over,” says Jason.
'The whole of Mount Maunganui Intermediate School comes through one gate. There's nothing to stop the kids coming out onto the road.”
Jason admits he wasn't aware of the issue until it affected his own daughter and is disappointed to hear that the issue has been ongoing for some time.
'We'll end up having to fundraise something illegal that the council will tear down,” he says. 'It doesn't feel like they've listened.”
One organiser of the latest petition, Karen Laidlaw, says it's frustrating to be in this position for a third time, but is unsure if anything will change.
'We need to find a way for segregation,” she says. 'There's no room for error.”
'I see near misses on most days that I use Links Ave.
'In the past they've painted road markings on the roads, but a visual barrier is not enough.”
According to NZTA guidelines, a road-to-footpath separation should be 150cm. On Links Avenue, it is only 30-60cm.
In a 2019 report, Tauranga City Council identified a 'heightened risk of collision if users leave the path”.
Despite this, a city-wide review of speed limits the following year made no recommendation to lower limits on the streets around Omanu, Mount Maunganui College or Mount Maunganui Intermediate School.
While presenting the petition at last week's council meeting, commission chair Anne Tolley said the council had already conducted an independent assessment.
In addition to installing a barrier, the community have suggested alternative solutions, such as the removal of bus lanes, re-direction of heavy vehicles onto wider roads, a reduction of the number of buses on Links Avenue, and a drop in the school hour speed limit to 30km/h.