This image came up the other day on the NZTA’s Facebook page and it highlights just how much wider SH16 will be between Te Atatu Rd (top) and Lincoln Rd when the works have finished. Before they started work the motorway was just two lanes wide each way. When finished it will be four lanes wide comprising of three general traffic lanes and a bus shoulder lane each way.
The stages of construction are shown in this diagram below
The corridor could get even wider as the North West busway is planned to be on the south side of the motorway
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So, double the width floods more traffic down the North Western, meets the three lanes at Waterview all to be funnelled into the CMJ. What could possibly go wrong?
In which secret bunker are they planning the subterranean quadrupluple stacked 20 billion dollar new improved CMJ? Doubled layered Newmarket viaduct… etc etc
Yeah. Auckland Council will be in no position to control the additional development further out west. Much like what has happened north of Albany. Yes, this includes Orewa. If the motorway, north of Albany, had not been built, there is no way I would be living here. Roads = development. Just try to accommodate all those cars on the motorways in the city. Unless they NZTA and AT rapidly expand the RTN PT network north and to the west, inner city motorways will be clogged.
In theory the extra width is actually to cope with the west – south, south – west movements (The CMJ bypass) that will be encouraged through the completion of the Waterview connection. How this works in practice is yet to be seen. However from a theory point of view the logic is sound.
It should actually take some pressure off the CMJ as currently, west south motorway trips are through here, with the connection complete they can bypass both the CMJ and Newmarket Viaduct.
Yes this is the theory, and it certainly adds resilience to the m’way system; an alternative route. NZTA apparently claim it will take a huge 10% off SH1, although which section is not clear, does that also include the bridge?
But my concern is that while this change may happen I can see at least as much new pressure focussing in on the CMJ in particular from these projects as they remove a current rationing action on all inbound routes being removed. With the widening in the South, on the Shore, the whole western ring route and especially the connection at Waterview, the control points remain at Mt Wellington, the Newmarket Viaduct, the Bridge and of course the convoluted spaghetti of the CMJ.
Now while that may sound great, open it all up, that isn’t how traffic works. I foresee floods of traffic just being much more suddenly delivered to the next conscrition points, especially on SH16 from St Lukes to the city and SH1 connections, the widening north of the bridge is almost perfectly designed to move the bottleneck to the bridge [why do that do you think?], heaps of urgent new spending on SH20 in Mangere, endless new spending yet more frustration. And an essentially overloaded CMJ.
Time will tell. PT still won’t be ready to take a much bigger load either with delays to the CRL, and no busway extension north, or true Busway on the NW.
People travelling west -> south out of Auckland would be stupid to go SH20, as the SH20 -> SH1 interchange in manukau is terrible. I’ve lost 20 minutes each time I’ve tried SH20 south.
The connection to the southern motorway from the northwestern through the CMJ is pretty bad too, worse in my opinion.
As that tweet about the Sydney harbour bridge pointed out earlier today – that 1 “bus lane” oops “bus shoulder” would have the least number of vehicles in it, yet it can, and should, carry more **people** per hour than all the cars in the adjacent 6 lanes combined would ever hope to do.
So why aren’t the bus shoulders front and center of this instead of relegated to the side where the bus shoulders will simply disappear at each and every interchange – leaving the buses, simply stuck in traffic?
cos mode focussed gov policy.
Dont know but maybe because there are 10 buses and hour in the peak and 3038 other vehicles.
I know, I know – shouldn’t feed the troll.
But elsewhere busways carry many times the number of people cars do and so make for a much more economical use of road space. If we closed the Northern Busway we’d have to build a duplicate 6-lane motorway from Albany to the city for some incredible cost ($10 billion plus?).
But you know this. You read this blog.
One bus per minute maybe.. or 10 _trains_ per hour. In fact just four full 6-car EMUs would do it http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/07/04/electric-trains-will-significantly-boost-capacity/
I accept your point and it really is a good one if all those people start at the same place and want to go to the same place. As you probably already know they have trains from Henderson but they dont carry as many people per day as a single lane of motorway currently does. Economists call it ‘revealed preference’.
Our transport system is as much “revealed preference” of the transport planners / politicians as revealed preference of users.
It’s called picking a mode, and then promoting it as “picking winners” – or even particularly cheekily calling it “balancing investment” or “Aucklanders prefer cars”.
Does it really need to be all or can it just be a significant percentage? I suggest the later.
I would think a significant percentage of those people are heading to work somewhere near a rail station considering the fact that almost all of the big employment centres in Auckland (East Tamaki being the glaring exception) are near a rail station – not just the CBD. Matt L has shown this a number of times on other posts.
Most of those people don’t choose PT because of negative perceptions (and often realities) created by decades of under investment in PT.
But you already know all this but continue to make statements that are blatant straw men arguments. Makes me wonder why. Ideological blindness or occupation related blindness?
Yeah it is the revealed preference of those in charge rather than the users. Once the western line is actually a Rapid Transit service and has the frequency and capacity, not to mention the direct route to and through the city, it will kill your motorway lane for numbers shifted. 20% growth versus ‘meh’. Growth wins.
Interesting you think I am using a straw man argument. To do that I must have misrepresented someone else’s position but I can’t for the life of me see where. (putting on my best innocent face) All I have done is point out people currently have a choice and they choose the way they do. Seems to me it’s a facts versus ideology argument. Some shoulder bus lanes will work really well here. But if your dogma limits your view to ‘all road improvements are shit’ well good luck to you. I wonder how many of the commuter public share your view. (see I can do a straw man when I try).
“all those people start at the same place and want to go to the same place” – There goes your strawman. As I clearly said above you know quite well that not “all those people” need to be going to the same place to make PT a viable option. Only a significant percentage.
It is the same as the usual ill informed “you expect everyone to do everything by PT or cycling” and then proceed to give examples which make up maybe 5% of an average person’s journeys. Classic strawman as the argument that 100% of journeys can be made by PT or cycling is one no PT or cycling advocate has ever made.
“But if your dogma limits your view to ‘all road improvements are shit’” – straw man number 2 and counting.
The dogma one was crafted on purpose to please you hence the bracketed comment at the end. The first isnt a straw man just an exaggeration. To be a straw man I would have to claim an opponent said that 100% were all going to the same place before demolishing that point.
Obscene.
What an eyesore, 8 lanes here and 11 through the causeway.
It’s obscene, an eyesore and the most pathetically scheduled roading project I’ve had the misfortune to have to suffer.
It’s much like living in your own home while it is being renovated but without the opportunity to pitch in and move the work along or withold payment to coerce the builder into action.
Two years ago I left home at 7am, six months ago I moved that forward to 6:30am and now if I’m not out of the house by 6am I might as well not leave until 10am. And this will continue until 2017, since 2012 – five years of misery! And now you tell me to wait, there’s more – dedicated bus lanes to the west – should have been done first.
The project has be hopelessly planned and watching two mean and a boy slowly plod their way through work on the two lanes bridge north of Lincoln Road over the last year it now sits their untouched 7/8ths done. I don’t know what logic they are using on their scheduling processes but they scratch away here for a while then stop and move 500m down the road to do something else then back again. I don’t blame the workers, it’s their masters and probably more than that the ponderous overhead of a conglomerate working through a multitude of separate works projects. Pathetic I say and a huge social cost on West Auckland.
The operations of New Zealand roadworks is one of the great mysteries in this countries history.
Your comments remind me of a story a friend once told me. His son went to Sydney to work on the construction of a tunnel. At the same time roadworks were happening on a prominent North Shore road. 3 months later the son returned to the shore having completed the Sydney tunnel. Roadworks were still going on the prominent Shore road!
It also reminds me of an industry insider who once told me what F&H stood for. It wasn’t Fulton & Hogan!
Sorry to make you feel even worse but Lincoln Rd interchange has been going since late 2010.
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/about/media/releases/937/news.html
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2014/04/03/lincoln-rd-interchange-2-years-late/
From what I’m aware the NZTA deliberately slowed down the project so they could use the money associated with it for other projects – such as in Christchurch post earthquake. I suspect there’s probably also an element of not wanting it finished with all the extra lanes only for it to have to squeeze past Te Atatu again while the works go on there.
Also note that they seem to have dropped the original plans for a new on ramp heading west. That seems to have been shoved into the next project which is widening the section around Royal Rd.
Widening the section around Royal Road? Are they insane?? There won’t be anywhere out West worth living in by the time those guys have finished.
are we in fact seeing a perpetual road widening project? We widen one bit of motorway, then have to widen the next. And the next, and the one after that. Great for the road builders and fossil fuel merchants but maybe not so good for the rest of us. Oh yes, and expensive.
NZTA have not increased their activity in Christchurch post earthquakes. So whatever they are doing it is not related to providing Canterbury with a better transport system to cope with the post earthquake changes in transport movements.
I have watched the road developments around Johns Road (the by-pass road near ChCh airport) it has been incredibly slow for what is a simple road widening project. When I lived in Finland I saw amazing civil works projects (both road and PT) start and finish in the six years I was there.
I am not sure what the problem is NZ. I suspect a lazy NZ form of cronyism.
Thanks, Matt I feel better already. I had sort of come to the conclusion that the west bound widening beyond Lincoln Rd wasn’t going to happen as there have been no early works to prepare the Southern bridge for replacement. So we are going to have the lunacy of three (sorry five when you count the offramp lanes) lanes slamming down to two under the Lincoln Rd bridge with the riduclously short on ramp (which you can’t see) coming in from the left just before an ancient two lane bridge. Well that speaks buckets for NZTA’s concern for building a safe network. Someone’s head should roll for that decision or at least they should be made to stand on the bridge parapet waving a little flag the way the gendarmes do warning TdeF riders of a traffic island ahead. Pathetic.
Haha. Head shall roll! <- Some peoples solution to everything, this term has entered the realm of comical.
Awesome. Sort the roads and everyone gets there quicker regardless of mode.
Yep, cos widening motorways sorts them out real good.
Gets where? The next traffic jam?
Genius.
“Sort the roads and everyone gets there quicker regardless of mode.” – Brilliant satire Ricardo.
Looks good!
After 60 years it’s time this section was upgraded.
I don’t see how a busway could be added on the south side though as it looks like this project will fill the enitire right of way.
Ah, see, that’s the clever thing. It’s like with cycle lanes – because they are at the edge of the already-overloaded-with-car-lanes right of way, building them – or the busway – will require property acquisition. Huge fights, huge costs, and “this project doesn’t have a high enough cost-benefit-ratio to be considered” (while the motorway itself didn’t even have to show a cost-benefit-ratio calculation).
Thats bias in action. That’s what building massive new roads gives you (except more car traffic and pollution).
I’m completely in favour of the western ring route and this expansion of the northwestern. My only gripe is that the Waterview section will be tolled. A truely effective bypass route should be toll free. Revenue should’ve been gained through congestion charging on citybound offramps and a regional fuel tax.
I currently live in the Netherlands but I have also lived in Auckland in the past. One of the main strategies in The Netherlands is to get as much traffic as possible on to large, high capacity motorway and arterial routes on strategic routes (my local motorway has at it’s widest 16 lanes and 235,000 vehicles per day). The idea is that travelling through the urban area on city streets per car is made less attractive. This leaves more room for cycle lane, tramways etc. Traffic volumes within cities here in The Netherlands are generally not busy at all, but the strategic ring and bypass routes are very busy and motorways of 10-16 lanes are not uncommon. The development of the Western Ring route fits this kind of urban strategy perfectly.
I am completely in favour of the CRL, cycling infrastructure, BRT and LRT. I love the shared spaces being opened up in the DBD and I hope that Auckland can diversify it’s travel modes further and further. However, strategic road bypass links are a part of the solution, not a barrier.
Just look at cities that many here aspire to with pedestrian friendly cores such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Zurich, Lisbon. They all have substantial, high capacity road networks taking through traffic out of the city cores.
The fact is, Auckland hasn’t done well in any transport mode up to now. The general road network (the crown jewel) has been very mediocre at best.
Er? Waterview is not a toll road. Agree that the urban bypass is the right place for this kind of road. Shame we first rammed one through the city, eh. I note that this isn’t the advice we we given at the time.
My bad Patrick. That’s excellent then!
It creates an excellent opportunity for the proposed LRT corridors and I hope a new prooposal for better cycling options on the Dominion Rd corridor
Prime opportunities to add a rail link to the central west gone begging. And if you are wondering why your local police station has closed or ceased to be available 24 hrs owing to budget cuts and budget freezes (to name but one of many fund starved public services) then the billions going into this project is your answer.
Going by the cross-section, Porsche 911 drivers will be pleased with their six lanes of exclusive use.
If you don’t own a Porsche 911, get in the bus. Especially those Porsche Cayenne drivers who have a habit of not stopping at stop signs and instead try to knock me off my bike.
Who do I petition to get all the NZTA roading layout diagrams to use 1980s/1990s rally cars instead of 911s?
Moar roads! We are saved!
Good data here: How Suburban drivers are clouding up Cities: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/04/how-suburban-cars-are-clouding-up-cities/389832/
Goodness Gracious me. Is it the lack of common sense or the Oil and Auto industry funding of the government, but the whole NW project defeats every logic of a mega aka super city. Putting a ferry service in Te Atatu with feeder buses would have not only saved millions of $$$ but also the time we (squirter) spend each morning and evening on SH16 not to mention the benefits on the environment. Wake up NZTA. Well as they say common sense is very uncommon.
Will the new tunnel linking to the southern motorway result in significantly more traffic volume on the northwestern?
Surely yes. Drivers from South who don’t currently use the motorway to get to CBD will surely enter the NW motorway at the SW/NW interchange
Hence making Lincoln/Te Atatu 8 lanes wide is pointless because the volume of new cars entering at Waterview will jam everything up