West Auckland locals are concerned over a "scary" pedestrian crossing right next to the train tracks, with one man warning it's "only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or worse".
The crossing is situated on Glenview Road in Glen Eden and is causing issues due to its complicated layout. Directly after the rail crossing is a traffic light controlled pedestrian crossing. Because the crossing is so close to the tracks, if people cross without seeing the light, they end up wedged in a tiny space and cars behind them could end up stuck on the tracks.
Local Richard Ramage highlighted the issue on a community social media page on Tuesday.
Ramage told Newshub on Wednesday it's a terrible place for a crossing and is putting lives in danger.
"The main issue is the pedestrian crossing is in a stupid place. It's too close to the train crossing and people don't notice the traffic lights that control it," he told Newshub.
Ramage was prompted to post his concerns on the community page after he captured footage of a car wedged into the tiny gap.
"Well that was bloody scary," he captioned the Facebook post alongside an image of the car. "The [pedestrian] crossing by the tracks on the GEPS [Glen Eden Primary School] side needs to go!
"You can hardly notice the one traffic light so people just run through it (they do as soon as the barriers and bells go up/stop anyway.
"Then they see the second lot and s**t like this happens. I'm so glad the person was driving a small car cause s**t that could have left a mess…It's only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or worse," he warned.
The issue was echoed by several other locals in the comments.
"Same thing happened to [us] the other day bro, it's a…. joke!" one person said.
Another said they were also caught out by the "scary" crossing regularly.
"Yes, I actually have to something as well cause not everyone notices the lights and I am always getting beeped at to go cause they wonder why I'm not. The whole set-up is scary," another person said.
"It is the most ridiculous setup down there ever. I hope something gets done before anything serious happens," another said.
"I don’t understand why they added the crossing and extra lights at the train tracks. Complete nightmare! Glad the person wasn’t injured!" someone else said.
"I saw this happen this morning...lady in first car stopped at the new traffic lights which was on red after going over the train crossing but another car was right behind her who I guess had not seen the new lights so then he was stuck in the train section area & beeped her to then have to go through the red light (sic)," another person mentioned.
Auckland Council has been contacted for comment.
