Despite what the Minister of Transport says, it is clear that one of the main reasons for the Puhoi-Wellsford road of national significance becoming a priority is to alleviate traffic congestion that happens north of Auckland during holiday times. Of course that’s not the only reason for the project becoming a priority – that seems to be a delusion (in my opinion) that saving 5-10 minutes off a trip between Puhoi and Wellsford is going to make the world of difference to Northland’s economy.
I’ve been up north for the last couple of days, so I’ve seen for myself what traffic congestion can be like around Warkworth. I was smart enough to miss the annual mess on December 27th, but I’m likely to hit some pretty nasty traffic on January 4th when I return to Auckland after another trip up north. That’s somewhat unavoidable as I start work on the 5th. My observations, after heading north on December 28th and returning to Auckland today, is that Warkworth really is the main problem along the road and that if we could bypass Warkworth it would make the world of difference to congestion problems.
Below is a photo taken earlier today of the traffic jam north of Warkworth. This was caused by the imfamous Hill Road intersection:
This stretched back about 3 kilometres to the north of the intersection. While the traffic was moving, it was somewhat annoying and probably added around 10 minutes to our trip time. Not the end of the world, but this was hardly the peak time for travelling either (and it was heading south rather than north).
The photo below shows the cause of the problem – an utterly stupid intersection:
There were plans to upgrade this intersection, although they seem to have gone on hold because of investigations into the holiday highway. After all, why would you spend millions upgrading an intersection that you plan to bypass – even if that bypass is another 10 years away from completion.
In fact, the ironic thing is that NZTA have spent millions upon millions of dollars upgrading State Highway 1 through Warkworth over the last couple of years. This seems to have been pretty much a complete waste of money – money that could have far better been spent on bypassing Warkworth altogether. The problem with the recent upgrade is pretty evident in the photo below:
The upgraded four-lane section is more distant, while the non-upgraded part is closer. You guessed it, the bottleneck (which is the intersection in the earlier photo) hasn’t been touched and the earlier bottlenecks in Warkworth have just been shifted north slightly.
The result is pretty unsurprising. It’s also worth noting what disdain NZTA have for pedestrians as even though this section of State Highway 1 goes right through the middle of a town, NZTA didn’t bother to put in a footpath on one side of the road:
This traffic jam (northbound traffic) continued south of Warkworth for a few kilometres, but once you were clear of that the road was generally flowing quite well.
It seems fairly clear to me that a Warkworth bypass is desperately needed – not in 10 years as per the current timeframe for the Puhoi-Warkworth section of the holiday highway, but as a fast-tracked section completed within 3-4 years. If only NZTA had been smart enough to realise this a few years back they could have built it already instead of wasting money on pointlessly widening half the main road through Warkworth.
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In terms of Northland’s economy: what’s the status of the railway to Whangarei and Marsen Point, is it still in an operational state? I would’ve thought if economy was the concern, then building up some kind of industry there would be the concern, and in that case rail would be a perfectly economical means of transporting goods to/from Northland.
@ erentz
No, you completely misunderstand the minister’s argument. While the railway exists and apparently $7million would be sufficient to put it into a reasonable operating state, economic growth will only occur if goods are transported to or from Northland by road. I presume the minister’s assertion has been made on the basis of advice given by those smart people at NZTA who were so clever to develop the current configuration of SH1 in and around Warkworth. And, course, the minister must also listen to the concerns expressed by important contributors to the economy such as the Road Transport Forum along with the rural constituents of his future parliamentary seat as well as taking cognizance of any suggestion that might be made by the prime minister who has a bach somewhere up there which he uses when he’s not on holiday in Hawai’i.
The railway exists and I have travelled on it recently. It’s fair to say that it’s not in good shape and I had doubts about the suitability of some of the tunnels to handle freight trains, but I have been assured that it would not take a lot to put it right.
I really don’t understand why the experts at NZTA are not held accountable for their actions. The Woodcocks Road/SH1 upgrade was very badly handled by NZTA and the contractors. It was 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 as NZTA were fearful of the backlash they would have received by trying to complete these works during the 8 busiest weekends of the year. Double laning the road all the way from Woodcocks Road to Hill Road would have gone a long way to reducing the congestion here, but they ran out of time (and money?). A short-term answer could be to change the light phasing during weekends, when far less traffic is accessing the Woodcocks Road industrial area and trying to come onto the Hill Road junction from the Eastern beaches.
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 Prime Minister could use Hill Road to get to his batch at Omaha and the CURRENT Minister could enjoy a leasurly drive up to join him for coffee. Don’t run away with the idea that he will be surveying a peaceful scene in his own constituency, as the people of Rodney are revolting and are beginnning to see through the minister’s plans. As they say up here, Rodney will not become Roadney and Mr Joyce will not find it plain sailing.
Bob, you could not be more wrong. The recent upgrade in Warkworth went over program and budget because NZTA scrimped on the design and pre construction site investigations. It was never intended however to provide four lanes between Woodcocks Rd and Hill St – widening the bridge over river Mahurangi was never in the plan.
Yes, someone at NZTA should be held accountable, but don’t hold your breath. On the subject of accountability, how about someone falling on their sword for the SH20 /SH1 southbound FU? Only now do NZTA propose commencing widening Hill Rd to Takanini at some point during the new year – should have been done two years ago – why does nobody in NZTA recognise that? They managed to suss out Newmarket to Greenlane ahead of the viaduct widening, so why not further south? Seriously, heads should roll.
Back to Warkworth, the current Hill Road design by NZTA has been rejected on safety grounds, but how relevent is it anyway? If the holiday highway happens, then all the eastbound traffic (15,000+ thru holiday period)will approaching from the north not the south, rendering the recent scheme totally redundant.
Basically, SH1 north of Orewa is conjested for seven days a year maximum. Save every cent from the Holiday Highway budget and invest it in the railway. You could eliminate at least half an hour from Auckland – Whangarei by eliminating trucks fro the highway.
Sam, Point taken. I didn’t word that very well. I intended to say that IF they had double laned over the bridge….. What I don’t understand is why locals in Warkworth are talking about stage 2 of this work being started after the summer period. have a meeting with Steven Town of NZTA on 11th Jan, so will ask then, but would like to find out more in the meantime.
Not too sure Bob; until recently the scheme on the program was the McKinney Rd intersection upgrade but now they’re talking about Hill St again. Presumably they reckon the HH is a done deal and will redesign Hill Street Intersection to accomodate eastbound traffic from northbound direction (as link from HH to WKWTH is north of the town.) I don’t think NZTA really know what their plans are at this stage. Keep us posted re your meeting.
For those that know it there already is a Warkworth bypass. Left at the Woodcocks intersection, over the one lane bridge and right into Falls road, over the ford (and yes many large trucks are using this tiny ford – one day it will break), over the Falls road one lane bridge and left into Hudson – takes you to SH1 a little south of the point where the NZTA want to bring out the HH. A derivative of this route was on the cards but taking traffic left from McKinney, then down to Woodcocks, then behind the college on a road that was to built by developers of a major residential site (their “bribe” to get permission for high density housing in that area)to join up with Hudson. I believe that the idea was that this road would serve two purposes – provide a bypass (known as the western collector) and join the two industrial areas of Warkworth and provide an easier way for traffic to service those areas (jobs keep an area viable – not just schools). The benefit is that in the main this solution uses existing road corridors that have been there for some time.
As for NZTA not caring about pedestrians – if they leave the town divided by what is now a four lane (except over the bridge) highway then it gives the school teachers even more of an excuse to bleat about traffic past their schools – thus reinforcing the NZTA indicative route. If the council and the good people of Warkworth are so concerned about the safety of the students – then where is the pedestrain overbridge that should have been included in the planning? All the pedestrians get is a pedestrian crossing at the Whitaker road lights – not good enough for a major college.
BTW – I don’t buy into the nonsense about SH1 splitting the town – SH1 has been there for as long as I can remember – it is the people of Warkworth (probably via the councils of the time) that determined that their schools should be placed west of SH1 – they can’t now complain that SH1 is separating the schools from the town.
It’s not the council’s responsibility to provide crossings of state highways. NZTA owns the corridor, the boundary, the air space, and the subterranean space. The council has no legal authority to cross it, any why should they have to anyway? It’s not their road. This one sits firmly in NZTA’s camp, and they’re supposed to be the experts on roadway planning.
“…A short-term answer could be to change the light phasing during weekends, when far less traffic is accessing the Woodcocks Road industrial area and trying to come onto the Hill Road junction from the Eastern beaches…”
Having come through this road yesterday, I think an even easier, cheaper and quicker solution would be to haul some lazy-ass cop out of his patrol car and stick him on points duty at this intersection for the four days a year it is utter chaos.
It’s not one cop, it’s three or four. Point duty is actually quite demanding work, especially in the middle of summer. I should know, as I’ve done it many times. You need someone to spell you about every 20-30 minutes, which means you can’t have one officer off patrolling and the other officer on point. The peak travel time occurs across a shift change, which means you lose two officers off the early shift and two officers off the late shift. Even if an officer is pulled in specially for doing point, it still requires one from each of early and late so you can have regular breaks.
If the lights were wired back to ATTOMS, they could be controlled from a 24×7 traffic management centre that’s used to manage traffic lights across Auckland. Whack in a couple of cameras to give the operators visibility of traffic flows and the problem’s pretty much solved.
Or just reprogram them with some date-based logic to give high precedence to the north-south flows. Not sure how easy that is to do with traffic lights, but it’s a very, very basic programming algorithm generally.
Hi Matt,
from our lounge we can see the traffic on SH1 snaking down to the Hill St intersection. This year it seems to be worse and I can only think that it is because of the Woodcocks Rd traffic lights. Providing some sort of preference to the North / South flows would probably go a long way to solving this problem but would create another one. Quite a lot of people use the Woodcocks Road turn off – more now since the lights have gone in. RDC (when they were around) had a policy of extending Warkworth residential to the west of Warkworth, an area now designated as Country Living Town Warkworth (or some derivative of that). Most of the residents in that area choose to use Woodcocks, either via direct access or access via Falls Rd, to get into Warkworth rather than use the Hill St intersection. So – you might fix up the holiday traffic flow but stuff up the flow for the residents who live in the area. If it could be managed via some sort of camera maybe that would be better – we were told that the lights were to be managed via sensitivity pads in the road but maybe that was just a con job?
Is there no alternative route for the residents? Even if it’s an extra couple of minutes it’s probably worth their while, especially if the overall traffic situation through Warkworth improves as a result of traffic light re-prioritisation.
I’m not sure how well demand sensors handle the ridiculously unbalanced traffic flows in evidence through this intersection. They can handle some level if imbalance, certainly, but when you get to the thousands-vs-tens scenario that exists during holiday peaks I don’t think they do very well. They also run phases to the low-demand feeder roads to ensure that light-weight vehicles that don’t trip the demand pads don’t get trapped. That doesn’t help the efficiency overall. One thing I have seen at Market Rd/GSR in Epsom is what appears to be a traffic camera that detects bicycles and triggers the light phasing accordingly. Something similar could be the solution for this intersection, giving holiday peak priority to SH1 but giving green for Woodcocks Rd if a vehicle arrives at the lights.
Hi Matt – the only other route to use would be the Hill St intersection and most of us avoid that like the plague! If you want to join SH1 to go to Auckland the right turn from Hill St is naaasttty – there is no right turn arrow and we just have to hope that the lad in the black Ford / Holden etc revving his engine wanting to turn left understands that until the right turn law change is implemented we have right of way. I Am totally surprised that there are not more accidents at this intersection – I have seen a lot of close misses. So now that we have a right turn arrow at Woodcocks we all breathe a huge sigh of relief and use that intersection – it was a long time coming.
So tens of thousands of New Zealanders are forced to wait for hours because the cops think traffic policing is so beneath them that they can’t find four officers out the 8,500 sworn staff to do points duty for a couple of days? WTF are the police forve for then? It seems to me anything that looks to much like hard work they can’t be bothered with and for everything they elect Greg O’Conner to whine constantly that we are not yet a police state where they just shoot people before continuing to eat their donuts.
I would take your comment as effectively stating that the police regard traffic issues only from an enforcement perspective, and the strongest indication that the 1992 merger giving them this function was therefore a big mistake.
If you hadn’t noticed, the police are an emergency service. Routine, expected, prolonged traffic delays are not their problem. And nor should they be. They’re not contracted by NZTA to provide decongestion services to mitigate the effects of NZTA’s poor planning. I, personally, would actually be rather hacked off if police resources were used to deal with a problem that’s predictable. It’s not like they have nothing else to do, contrary to your opinion.
NZTA could always contract Fulton Hogan or similar to manage a scheduled outage of the traffic lights. It’d cost a lot, but, hey, apparently dealing with holiday congestion on two days a year is worth spending billions to shuffle around.
Did anyone travel SH1 from Wellsford to Auckland today early afternoon?
Coming south I stopped at Wellsford and it was a very busy place, nose to tail traffic, so I decided to go with SH16.
Setting off at 12:30 there was almost no traffic at any stage. SH16 for me is a bit over 20kms further than SH1.
It took roughly 1hr 20mins to reach my home in Grey Lynn. I say roughly as I stopped a couple of times en route.
It would be helpful to have a signboard at Wellsford showing the estimated time to cbd Auckland.
I came back from camping at Tawharanui around midday and traffic was absolutely fine on SH1 between Warkworth and Orewa.
Our vacation this year took us through Auckland to Whangarei and I kept thinking about this RONS planning as we were driving it. The problem doesn’t appear to be much about the road – although that intersection is poorly handled. The problem is that merging lanes are a complete failure given typical kiwi driving habits. Rushing to the front of a queue to merge from a standstill is not merging like a zip.
Take the $300M and teach people to drive in a system instead of them driving with only themselves in mind. Selfish drivers make everyone lose.
I agree entirely re the bypassing Warkworth. I am resident south of Warkworth and we use WW for most of our shopping, but when the silly season comes we go south to Orewa and go the old route avoiding the motorway. I would have thought that if the bypass were constructed now and joined to the current SH say a couple of kilometers south of the town then it would be money well spent AND they could delay the main motorway extension (if desired). There is a lot of traffic heading from south to Snells, Matakana, Omaha etc and these people need to be directed around the town to the west and then eased around the eastern beaches with either a new road or at least some intersection modifications at the Hill Road Intersection. It just does not work.