Residents aiming to keep the historic walkway linking Ngatai Road and Seaway Terrace open were told the fight is over when they turned up to make their feelings known to Tauranga City Council's city vision committee today.

There will be no extension and no reprieve says zero harm manager for the Infrastructure and Asset Management division of KiwiRail, Peter Dix.

The ‘illegal' crossing that predates KiwiRail. Photo: File.

More than a dozen residents and supporters hoped to have their protests heard by councillors, but it turns out there's nothing the council can do to prevent the crossing being closed.

The flyer sent to residents on April 1 says the crossing could be closed from today.

According to Peter, the crossing is unsafe and bringing it up to standard will cost 'hundreds of thousands” of dollars because of the sightline safety requirements.

He says people coming down the steps have to be able to see a considerable distance along the track, which they cannot do unless considerable earthworks take place. He wasn't asked about an overbridge, or how much that would cost.

KiwiRail views it as an illegal crossing that has been there for a number of years

'We have been working with Tauranga City Council for a period of time now,” says Peter.

Kiwi Rail's attention was first brought to the crossing when it received complaints about the state of the wooden steps that give access (across KiwiRail land) down to the track.

Seaway Terrace resident Doreen Anderson. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

'It was not put there by us and we have no right or requirement to maintain it,” says Peter, 'so we don't.”

But it does place the crossing in the list of top ten issues for pedestrian crossings in New Zealand, and KiwiRail is closing it on safety grounds.

According to KiwiRail's survey of crossing users, they tend to be either school children, likely to be listening to headphones instead of listening for trains, or the elderly, who have to walk over track ballast instead of a properly formed pathway or pad.

When the residents mentioned no one has been hurt on that crossing since the railway went over the pathway in 1927, Peter says a boy killed on the track at Te Kuiti last year was the first person to be killed there.

Peter, however, had no answer to Doreen Anderson's complaint that they've had four working days to consider the path's closure, which the city council has known about since December, and didn't tell anyone until the joint announcement was made on April 1 – just four working days before the April 13 work commencement date.

She was given no explanation from councillors or staff and her plea to Peter for an extension of time was denied.

As for the tsunami escape route argument for keeping the crossing open, council staff say the city council's tsunami hazard map shows Seaway Terrace and Beach Road residents can escape the mapped tsunami danger without having to cross the rail tracks.

KiwiRail's Peter Dix. Photo: Bruce Barnard.