As I predicted a couple of days ago, the NZ Herald reports on yesterday’s traffic jams around Warkworth:
Bumper-to-bumper traffic stretched almost the length of the 7.5km toll road between Orewa and Puhoi for three hours from late yesterday morning.
Some hot and frustrated drivers and passengers got out of their cars to stretch their legs and cool off.
Angry motorists vented their frustration on Twitter.
Doug Hanna wrote that he had visitors from Auckland staying with him at Oakura, north of Whangarei: “Took 5 hours 40 to get here today. Took us 3.10 yesterday.”
Hamish Rouse was travelling in the opposite direction: “NZ Traffic anywhere out of Auckland is insane. Just came down from up North. Poor northbound travellers.”
While it seems some of the congestion is caused by the two-lanes to one-lane merge just before the Johnstone’s Hill tunnel, I wonder how much of a difference a Warkworth bypass would make.
The giant traffic jam was caused by two lanes of motorway traffic having to merge into one lane before the Johnstone’s Hill tunnel, and then merge again with vehicles from the coastal road on the one northbound lane beyond the toll road.
Although the Government has designated a $1.65 billion four-lane highway from Puhoi to Wellsford as one of seven “roads of national significance”, the first stage to Warkworth will not be completed until 2019 and the final stage not until 2022.
While I do think it’s stupid to justify a roading projects on the basis of what happens once a year, the holiday highway is a pretty poor solution to this problem anyway – because it will take so extremely long to complete. Why not fast-track a Warkworth bypass and try to have it built within 2-3 years?
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I wonder what the travel time was for those using SH16 to Wellsford at the same time? It would have made a far more balanced article to have provided this information instead of elevating Puford.
Balance? In Granny? You should do stand-up 😛
They say sheep are thick. Personally i think the human race is more so. What happened to staggering your departure time or for that matter using the other route through to Welsford. Idiots the lot of them. Muppet Joyce’s holiday highway is not going to make a jot of difference. For one thing it’s several years away and will still be a waste of time and money. As has been said several times here, fix the Dome valley, do a bit more work around Puhio, Warkworth and Welsford and it will sort out a major amount of the problems. Motorists also need to get real, leave earlier(or later)and depending where you are traveling to 4, 5 ,6 in the morning, it can be a pleasant time to travel especially if the kids are asleep in their car seats fast asleep.
I drove north this morning and the road was fine except around Warkworth. A quick and simple Warkworth bypass would solve all the problems. It could have largely been built for what’s been spent on the stupid half upgrade of the main road through Warkworth.
27th December, 3 to 4 hours of delays, 28th December, no delays and the same last year and the year before. The Warkworth by-pass wouls solve a lot of the problems. I was told just a few days ago that a contract had been awarded to start work on the Warkworth by-pass within a few months. Others are saying that that it will not happen if the Holiday Highway goes ahead. Does anyone know the truth?
“The giant traffic jam was caused by two lanes of motorway traffic having to merge into one lane before the Johnstone’s Hill tunnel, and then merge again with vehicles from the coastal road on the one northbound lane beyond the toll road.”
No, the giant traffic jam was caused by too many cars on the road!
Spending $5-6 million on a second northbound lane as far as the Puhoi turn-off and a short second southbound lane as far back as the toll payment point would be better.
And don’t people know you’re not allowed to walk on a motorway – get all of Auckland’s motorcycle cops on the toll road and the infringements would pay for the improvements!
^^ That’s in addition to the Warkworth Bypass and general improvements.
Swan – exactly, but having Granny say that would be like having Steven Joyce admit that the Holiday Highway is all about getting to the bach quicker.
Anyway, Jarbs, I’ve got one for you that deserves a letter of reply and seeing as you’re far, far, far better at articulating the concepts we’re getting across, reply to this fool who wrote to the Sunday Star-Times:
“I am surprised that it is not commonly pointed out just how urban rail systems, in comparison to roads, concentrate the “benefits” on a small proportion of society, while the costs are wrongly carried “democratically.
Roads are one of the most powerful forces for ‘equality’ in an economy, as they give everyone the best possible mobility and access to employment and amenities. Neglect of roading by the government hurts the lowest income workers the most.
Rail-based systems concentrate the potential ‘benefits’ to those who are located conveniently. It is impossible to locate more than a small minority of your population near a rail stop. The more concentrated the population gets, the higher land values go, so there will always be a point at which most people are ‘priced out’ of convenient locations. It is also impossible for any known economy to finance a ‘network’ of rails anywhere near as dense as a typical roading network that is accessable to all.
It is an unfortunate reality in politics that widely dispersed benefits or costs will not be worth the bother for any individual to put up a fight over, while the most noise will always be made other things like rail systems that benefit a few. Any classic economist a century ago could have told you the only fair and efficient source of revenue for infrastructure, is the owners of properties that stand to gain. ‘Development contributions’ are a sensible idea, but they should apply just as much to property owners in long-established areas who stand to gain from a new rail system. If they do not want to pay for it, then it should not be built. If they do not pay their fair share of the costs, but reap all the gains, of course the project will have their vocal and active support.
Meanwhile, low-income workers running 20-year-old cars daily from the only location they can afford to buy a home, 30km away, must pay into this wealth transfer, as well as suffering the consequences of inadequate road funding, at a daily cost in time and money.
Phillip Hayward
Naenae, Lower Hutt.”
Please, please Jarbs, grab the “you’re a muppet” stick and whack that man!
Try this:
Another thing to wait for is the inevitable letter to the editor asking “why haven’t they made the road two lanes through the tunnel when it is for the southbound lanes”. For those that may not know, it is for safety reasons.
And as soon as the Holiday Highway is built, people will stop using the alternative routes and SH1 will be even more congested. Has that been included in the business case. We people are funny creatures, we change our behaviour when something new is built. Imahine that, we might even be able to get more people on the trains once the CBD tunnel is built.
The most efficient solution would be for route such as this to be priced to spread demand over the day, so that the few hours when demand is excessive would cost a lot more on both the toll route (so that the merge doesn’t create congestion) and north of the toll route so that the entire section from Puhoi to the SH16 intersection cost more, per km, than per usual.
However, neither the road advocates nor the anti-road lobby can see past the old fashioned “build more roads” or “build public transport” arguments in favour of management. Even if the state highway network was managed using modern technology, with ATMS signs, SMS and a wider aggressive programme of publicity to travel at different times, or use SH16, could have made a world of difference.
The incentives to do this are appalling though, given state highway management is now hidden within a big planning and funding bureaucracy. However a company running state highways that was paid for managing a network that runs efficiently, avoids congestion and delivers high standards of service to those who pay for it (motorists) might do a different job.
a faster trip for everyone however sadly I think those in power are far to scared of causing a public backlash by trying to implement such an idea. You can see it now, opponents would be label it as a holiday tax and say the government are just trying to take advantage of people. I don’t think it should be given to a company to run however due to the extra costs they would likely impose on either the government or the road user so that they can collect a profit.
Road congestion management that might make a difference. Is this system to manage traffic on public roads working anywhere in the world right now? How would a local wanting to drive five Km up the road get on? These jams are not something out of left field, I remember as a kid spending tedious hours in the back of the car on SH 1 at holiday time though in those days the old route was motorway/Wairau Rd/ Dairy Flat etc. I think it is simply part of the Auckland psyche to act like a bunch of lemmings at this time of year.
I’m slightly amused, as one who had my tweet quoted in as an “angry and trapped” motorist. Having recently spent a month living in LA, I was being ironic, but it is easy to see how Auckland is sliding into the same mistakes. The kind of congestion that is currently reserved for holiday traffic is tame compared to the daily rush hours in LA, where a 30 minute trip can easily turn into a 3 hour trip. LA is in the process of re-laying tracks previously ripped up, and digging new subways with what little money that have to spare.
Compare and contrast with today’s editorial in the DomPost – it’s a big sloppy kiss in favour of Wellington’s train system, looking forward to the bright future of improvements in 2011.
Given that it’s by the WRC chair, are you surprised? Granny would print similar missives if they were sent in as OpEd.
Matt, not quite sure what your problem is with Fran’s run down of improvements in Wellington services. I can tell you that the new trains are silky smooth and I hope Aucklands new trains will be as good.
No problem, just observing that publishing OpEd pieces doesn’t constitute the paper taking a position. The Herald has published pieces that are highly critical of Puford and praise rail to the heavens, but they still put the paper’s name to shit like the editorial piece published today. That’s the difference between OpEd and editorial.
That said, DomPost does seem to be somewhat more rational and open-minded about public transport.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/sh1-closed-near-dome-valley-after-three-car-crash-3988394
No.. of course we don’t need a motorway.
You don’t need a motorway to have a median barrier. See Operation Lifesaver on this site for an alternative to Puford.
Does that solve the congestion issue?
It includes a Warkworth bypass, which would.
You spelt “wouldn’t” wrong.
It would solve the congestion issue 99% of the time, the question is do you think it is worth spending $2bil just to fix it for the one day a year the bypass might not completely solve the problem?
The reality is most of the congestion and safety issues can be solved for a fraction of the cost of a new motorway leaving the rest of the money to be spent on improving other areas that need it thereby providing even greater economic and social benefits.
$1.69b to “fix” a problem that occurs on two days a year: last statutory holiday day of the New Year period, and December 27? That strikes you as a reasonable use of money? That’s 134% of NZTA’s entire capital expenditure for the 2010 financial year (page 53). How many businesses would throw their whole capital works budget for a full year and a third of a second year at a twice-a-year problem that mostly affects activities that don’t directly earn revenue? Remember, this is holiday traffic not freight.
Making the highway safe can be done for about $300m, and within three years. Resolving the congestion at Warkworth can be done for similar cost and much more quickly than the full Puford Grandé plan of Joyce’s wet dreams.
Is this about quick and effective fixes to lethal problems, or about building a glorified monument to the motor car? Because I know which of these I would rather my tax dollars supported, and I know which of these doesn’t give Joyce wood.
A few thoughts from someone who lives near Warkworth. The problem only exists at “holiday” weekends, which is probably 8 weekends a year, with the 27th December and 30th December being the worst times. Until the Northern gateway opened, there was a problem in Orewa at the Grand Drive/Hibiscus Coast Highway junction every Sunday afternoon, but this could easily have been solved with a Pointsman at the lights there. Problem was that no-one had the will to do anything about it.
The Woodcocks Road/SH1 upgrade was a fiasco right from the start and ran so far behind schedule that the 2nd stage (sorting out the Hill Road/Matakana Road junction at the northern end of the town) had to be postponed. NZTA were fearful of the backlash they would have suffered by trying to complete these works during the 8 busiest weekends of the year. I use this junction every day. There is going to be a problem heading north as all the traffic funnels down to one lane to cross the bridge over the Mahurangi River and hence onto the Hill Rd junction, but there does not appear to be any logic to the light phasing. The lights appear to operate on the same timescales at weekends, when the commercial area on Woodcocks Rd is almost closed down and fewer residents are trying to exit Matakana Rd, as they do during the weekday morning and evening peaks. Hence the huge build-ups through Hill Road.
The Warkworth By-pass would solve all this. Through traffic to Wellsford and beyond would use the by-pass. Traffic to Warkworth Town Centre the existing SH1 to Neville St and traffic to the Eastern beaches, the existing SH1 to Hill Road.
The Warkworth By-pass is desperately needed now. There is no need to spend $2.04Billion on a motorway. The “Western Collector” as it was called was agreed by Rodney Council and NZTA and there was a commitment by NZTA to go ahead with this despite the demise of Rodney Council. I was told that a contract had been awarded recently to start work “at the end of this summer.” Does anyone else know if this is the case?