A controversial road trial in Mount Maunganui has been approved and could start in as little as two weeks.

Tauranga City Council commissioners have approved a minimum four-month trial of a cul-de-sac on Links Avenue in an extraordinary council meeting on Monday.

The trial will also see the westbound morning peak bus lane removed and a 30km/hr speed limit put in place.

Links Avenue runs parallel between Maunganui Rd and Oceanbeach Rd, two main arterial routes in Mount Maunganui. It connects Concord Avenue to Golf Rd.

The four-month trial comes on the back of a five-week trial of the cul-de-sac that started on November 15, 2021.

Some residents of the street were vehemently opposed to the original trial and took to protesting when the cul-de-sac was first put in place.

In the initial trial the road was blocked off from Ascot Rd, preventing anyone living east of the cul-de-sac easy access to Mount Maunganui.

Tauranga City Council director of transport Brendan Bisley says public feedback received during and after the trial was the primary direction residents go is toward Mount Maunganui.

'From a public perspective, the trial wasn't hugely popular,” says Brendan.

'I think a lot of people found it inconvenient because it was very difficult, if you live on the Concord Avenue end of the street to get out.”

The new trial will move the cul-de-sac further down the road toward Concord Avenue.

All directly affected residents will have access to Golf Rd however only buses, bicycles and motorbikes will be able enter or exit Links Avenue from Concord Avenue.

The initial trial came about after some of the street's residents raised safety concerns around their children, pedestrians and cyclists accessing schools and commuting in peak traffic when the road is heavily congested.

Mount Maunganui Intermediate's bus entrance is on Links Ave and the road is also used by students travelling to Mount Maunganui College and Omanu Primary.

Commissioner Shadrach Rolleston says there was a 'significant problem with this particular part of the network”.

'We couldn't just sit by and allow this continue to, which is why we've acted.”

Traffic data collected from Links Avenue by TCC before the trial began showed about 7500 vehicle movements per day.

Commission Chair Anne Tolley says this is a residential street 'which you would normally expect to see two to two-and-a-half-thousand vehicles a day”.

'And it's now got 7500 vehicles a day and that in itself is wrong.”

Council trial data showed the cul-de-sac reduced through movements on Links Avenue by around 70 per cent and 'the wider transport network was able to cope”.

Brendan says the purpose of the four-month trial is to enable increased safety through removal of the bus lane and to see if people will move to alternate moves of transport.

'The reason we're suggesting that we do this trial for a minimum of four months is that we didn't see, with only a five week trial, any behaviour modification.”

Brendan says people didn't shift to alternate modes of transport like using buses, cycling or adjusting the times they were travelling.

'Four months will allow for people to try different ways of travelling. And it gives us a better idea of what would be the permanent impact on the network, if we would have something like this permanently installed.”

Brendan says people's preferred route of travel during the initial trial was to go down Oceanbeach Rd which saw an increase 3000 vehicles per day to a weekday average of 17,400.

Travel times were also recorded during the trial using anonymous Bluetooth data at timing points, one on Maunganui Rd and another on Oceanbeach Rd.

The data shows at travel time via Oceanbeach Rd was two-three minutes longer in the afternoon and 35 seconds to 1.4 minutes in the morning.

While travel via Maunganui Rd was 40 seconds to three minutes longer in the afternoon and 25-50 seconds longer in the morning.

Anne, who commutes from Pāpāmoa, says her travel time during the trial was 'pretty close” to her typical commute, particularly in the morning. 'I wasn't surprised, but it was much less than we had originally anticipated.”

Shadrach says in terms of the cul-de-sac and the safety issues around the conflicts between school children, cyclists and car users to 'trying to come to the perfect solution is a challenge”.

'Seeing the results [of the trial] it has essentially addressed that safety issue.”

Shadrach says there is tension between the community wanting to be safe and the convenience of being able to go places in a timely fashion.

Anne says the trial is just one piece of work around the city's roading infrastructure and commissioners are not in any position to make a decision about a permanent solution for Links Ave.

The trial is expected to start late-February and continue for at least four months. Council staff will report back to the commissioners in August.

Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.