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I grew up in Warkworth, and the infamous Hill Street intersection has been an issue not just my whole life, but for decades before I was even born. My dad told me stories of how, back in the 80s, he’d set up seats overlooking the intersection and sit watching the chaos of people trying to navigate it.
I’ve seen frustrated people stuck in traffic pull off dangerous maneuvers to try and get through. I’ve seen near misses and collisions. And I’ve walked the footpaths (or lack thereof).
As a local you end up learning how to navigate that intersection, and for me it was the same. When I was learning to drive, I was taught the specific ways to get through that are easier and less dangerous, which I still remember even now I’ve moved away to the city centre of Auckland.
It’s been called the ‘worst intersection’ in the country’, and it very much deserves that reputation. As One Mahurangi Business Association manager Murray Chapman describes it:
“If you can imagine an intersection designed by somebody going through emotional turmoil. There’s five roads leading into it. Some people bully their way through. Some people will sit at the give-way signs for what seems like hours because they’re too scared to go anywhere.”
Despite the completion of the Matakana Link Road and the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway in June 2023 (which has reportedly reduced traffic through here by half), this complicated intersection is still a huge problem for everyone who uses it. And it will only get worse as the local population grows.
Thankfully, a solution was found, led by and with the community (at great effort and time), and this is what is (or was) about to be implemented at last by Auckland Transport, after years of back and forth:
So when news broke that, after decades of going in circles (as we wrote over 10 years ago on this very blog), this construction-ready community-led design has had its funding pulled by NZTA, meaning the project is effectively cancelled – it’s safe to say the local community is furious.
Why was the agreed-upon design cancelled at the last minute?
This is a direct result of the Minister of Transport Simeon Brown’s crusade against safe streets and cycleways. His Government Policy Statement on transport essentially forbids NZTA from co-funding any multi-modal designs, especially if they include safety elements for walking, cycling, rolling and scooting, and even if communities want them.
When asked about the cancellation, the minister’s response was flippant:
Transport Minister Simeon Brown said Auckland Transport’s design for upgrades of the Hill Street intersection included at least five new speed bumps and three sections of cycleway.
That did not align with the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport, or his expectation that investment in transport infrastructure would get back to basics.
“If Auckland Transport wish to advance this project, they will need to rework the design for the intersection to better align with the GPS and then re-submit it to NZTA for consideration of co-funding.”
Brown said the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway extension and the new Matakana Link Road had also significantly reduced pressure on the Hill Street intersection.
This high-handed rebuff of community aspiration has left many in Warkworth fuming:
Dave Stott, who co-chairs the One Mahurangi Transport and Infrastructure Forum with MP Chris Penk, said he was “extremely disappointed”.
“We were appalled by the minister’s comments about having to redesign the intersection with particular reference to cycling and pedestrian access, given that we’ve had a process of design engagement with Auckland Transport and NZTA … In fact, we felt insulted.”
You have to wonder: will the local MP go into bat on behalf of the community, as he promised to in 2020?
But I want to be clear for everyone. This cancellation is a direct result of the Minister’s overreaching agenda, as enabled by this coalition government.
It was cancelled because, under the Minister’s policy, it’s too safe. Because it includes what he calls “speed bumps” – in fact, raised crossings, an internationally accepted design for safe and equitable access.
It was cancelled because this Minister doesn’t care about the safety of people walking and cycling, and has detailed as much in his GPS, in direct contravention of what communities want.
It was cancelled even though Warkworth expects thousands of new residents in coming years. This Minister apparently doesn’t think their kids should have safe connected routes from home to school.
It was cancelled despite the local community having worked for years with AT and NZTA to design and develop a scheme that people wanted – everything Simeon purports to champion. So much for ‘localism‘, as the war on Auckland continues.
This is what happens when your politicians are more concerned about ideological purity than actual people: they make up issues that are divorced from reality, and leave communities in the lurch.
Keep in mind that Warkworth is traditionally a National stronghold – having a solution snatched away, after decades of delay and failed attempts. Led and progressed by, and with, the community – then cancelled, because one Minister personally doesn’t care about safety and is somehow triggered by cycleways.
How many more millions will be spent redesigning this project to suit this one Minister’s conceit? How many more years will this take? What does that mean for safety in the meantime? And how lethal will the redesign need to be before this Minister will approve it? What if he’s not even the Minister any more, after Warkworth has been put through a whole stupid process all over again, just to please him?
Why does the Minister hate locals walking, biking, kids getting around independently… and congestion-free roads?
As well as delaying safety for drivers at this notoriously crash-ridden intersection, the Minister’s footpath fatwa is damaging for anyone in Warkworth who was looking forward to being able to walk or bike into the township.
The Hill Street upgrade, as well as simplifying driving movements and reducing crash risks, would have created a continuous connection of four kilometres of safe walking and biking path, all the way from all the new developments in the north, past the local primary school, and as far as Mahurangi College (the local high school, which currently has a roll of 1300).
Up to 10,000 more people are expected to move into the area north of the intersection. Because of Simeon Brown’s cancellation, hundreds, if not thousands, of children and parents will be prevented from being able to walk and bike safely to the local primary and high schools.
How much more congestion will there be, when all these people are forced to drive back and forth twice a day to and from school?
And it’s not just about children’s access and safety. Co-chair of the One Mahurangi Transport and Infrastructure Forum Dave Stott sums up how frustrating this abrupt cancellation is, on many levels:
“This process has been going on now for about six years. We’ve had a number of our own engineers working side by side with the engineers at Auckland Transport to come up with what we believe to be the most economic and most effective design for that intersection.”
Stott, a former roading engineer, said a raft of groups and government agencies had been involved in coming up with an integrated transport plan for the town that took into account the needs of motorists, pedestrians, cyclists and public transport.
The cycleways had been designed to link up with cycleways planned by three new housing developments in the Hill Street area – Arvida, the Kilns project and Templeton – as well as with the Matakana Coastal Trail.
“So what we are doing is tying in to a network proposed by a number of other parties, but also taking account of the fact that there’s probably going to be up to 10,000 people living in the northeast of Warkworth in future.
“They, in particular school kids, are going to have to come through that intersection, because all the schools are to the west or the south.
“So we’re looking at huge safety issues for schoolchildren and cyclists to get in to Warkworth,” Stott said.
While it was true the number of vehicles using the intersection had fallen since the motorway extension had been completed, Stott said projections showed that once the three housing developments had been built, traffic volumes would be even higher than they had been pre-motorway.
This intersection has been a problem my entire life. It has been a problem all of Simeon Brown’s life. It has been the all-encompassing transport mess in Warkworth for decades.
Just when it finally felt there was a solution in sight, it was snatched away by a Minister of Transport who seems to care more about his own personal crusade against safety and people on bikes than he does about building a transport system that works for everyone.
Where to from here?
This Warkworth project is just one of dozens, maybe hundreds around the country that the Minister has scuttled with his war on safety – to the dismay of locals who’ve worked hard and campaigned for smart, multi-modal fixes that work for everyone. For example, here’s a list of safe crossings on state highways – which communities begged for, and which the minister summarily cancelled in his first few months on the job.
Hill Street just puts a very human face on the scale of these losses around the country. We’ll continue to see sensible projects delayed and cancelled until we get a more sensible and less ideological Minister.
In the meantime, we’ll continue to spend millions more dollars, and waste precious years of our lives, redesigning and re-consenting all manner of local projects that happen to include raised tables and cycleways. (Meanwhile, billion dollar mega-projects like RoNs will escape any kind of meaningful scrutiny.)
And, while communities wait for the politics to play out, the issues that trouble them won’t go away. There will continue to be crashes, and congestion will grow, and kids will be buckled into cars for short trips in their neighbourhoods – and anyone who might prefer the option of walking or biking now and then is out of luck.
All to satisfy one out-of-touch minister’s notions of what matters.
When things like this happen, it’s really important to take notice of why, and to put the focus on who has made this call.
One thing I do know is that the community in Warkworth is certainly taking notice of what’s happening, and will not be taking this lying down.
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I think Luxon needs to reign in his transport minister. People didn’t necessarily vote based off transport policy. Yet he seems to think he has a mandate to turn everything into a mad max dystopia.
One didn’t need to consider transportation when voting to know that this was going to happen. Welcome to the find out stage of elections. Elections have consequences and when politicians show you who they are (National were both very clear and very vocal about their plans and their values) you should believe them and vote accordingly. Anyone who thought that this government would have any concern for local needs and wants, be interested in any local input, or care in the least about everyday people going about their lives, was not paying attention.
Oh, there is also nothing more “basic” than walking and cycling.
Well said Susan many people voted National knowing they were going to middle finger walking and cycling. The consultation on the speed limits shows people want to ignore evidence as quickly as possible, stop blaming National they are simply delivering what the general public wants. If the public really wanted speed bumps and lower speed limits they would’ve voted for that. The evidence is clear as crystal a majority of NZers don’t care for others not in a car. Change the public’s perception and you’ll get real change blaming politicians for doing what the public asked for is not going to get you anywhere.
…and yet all drivers become pedestrians once they arrive at their destination.
Yeah it’s a bit ironic but the evidence shows they just do not care about lives they want flow over lives. They have voted very clearly on this issue and submitted clearly (65% for faster) once again all this change you want depends on public vibes not evidence. Whoever writes these articles never mentions the public likes this stuff and is only willing to blame politicians yet multiple articles have been written and if anything the progress to speed up and flatten speed bumps has only gotten harder and faster. Maybe they should ask why.
It’s usually known as ‘The intersection from hell’. Simeon Brown is the transport minister from hell
Transport Death Minister
Simeon Brown definitely has something on Luxon. Whether he’s seen some things at their weird church or whatever I’m not sure but he has been given so many important roles and such a high standing in cabinet for someone so inept.
“High standing”
um
Maybe not?
A key benefit of the expensive business of bypassing urban areas and towns with major roads is that it enables removing highway-like qualities to roads with schools and businesses and homes along them, by removing all that through traffic. Returning a local quality to local places. Literally slowing traffic, making places places again and not just traffic sewers.
See the narrowing and planting and paving on the old SH1 in Taupo for example done after Waka Kotahi built the bypass of the town. This done for all the obvious reasons, not least of which if these rural towns are to have a viable future once bypassed it is in attracting visitors, residents, and businesses based on the quality of life there, not on the speed it is possible to drive through it. The highway does that job now, more safely.
This benefit will be in the business case for the highway. I have long argued that the cost of these upgrades to the bypassed centres should be intr=ernal to the highway budget, as they are a key part of their benefits, and can’t be fully realised without investment to fix the old terrible pseudo-highways.
It is economically criminal to delay improving the old route to best practice standards, using evidence to increase safety, walkability, and place quality.
Travel Time Savings are the key metric for the highway, but safety, amenity, and place are for the neighbourhood.
Well said, thanks for the wholistic perspective
I’ll give another not so tourist orientated example.
In the late 90s State Highway 26 through Morrinsville was moved from the main shopping street one block over to a more industrial area (it has the dairy factory).
Zero meters of new roads built, just a redesign of intersections.
The main street got rebuilt footpaths, raised crossings. And went from empty to full of public art (60 life sized, and one larger than life, statues donated by local businesses and families).
“It is economically criminal to delay improving the old route to best practice standard”
I seem to remember a lot of talk about how the Waterview tunnel would allow various Isthmus arterials to have reduced traffic volumes, thus allowing more space for non-car modes. Nothing ever got done on that. Be wary of any such claims, especially with traffic modellers who claim (yes, they still do so – even in a recent hearing) that traffic is a liquid. It’s a gas.
“Keep in mind that Warkworth is traditionally a National stronghold””
Yes, there’s the rub. Rare Misstep knows that he can do whatever he wants to the people in Warkworth, and they’ll blame Labour Party socialists or illegal migrants or whoever. Anyone but him.
And the fun thing in MMP is that they don’t need to “lose the seat” or anything dramatic like that. If Simeon’s shenanigans makes 1-2% of National vote at election time angry enough to stay home or vote differently, that can lose the elections (if other things go against them).
It could actually be better, in the longer term, that Simeon Brown is working hard to ensure that our current coalition of clowns get only one term of government.
After every fatality at the intersection from now on, Simeon should be named as a defendant in a civil suit and Workplace investigation.
Thanks for putting this all down on record, Connor. Hopefully it gets wide circulation in Warkworth and the pressure goes on Penk at the very least.
Someone local should be organising a protest march aka Dunedin. National have ignored Dunedin because it’s a Labour stronghold. They can’t ignore a march in Warkworth.
Great idea. Being polite and constructive has not been enough.
Great idea. Not a resident but familiar enough with that intersection. How thoroughly disheartening and frustrating for a community led design, worked through with all the stakeholders, be wiped by one seemingly ignorant Transport minister. Residents of Warkworth: protest, write, call NationalZB and get this rubbish decision the negative attention it deserves.
That 5 road roundabout reminds me of the Royal Oak roundabout. Are we sure it will be good for anyone? I’d prefer traffic lights at Royal Oak any day.
Royal Oak is multi-lane – multiple approaches, multiple circulation lanes. That’s a massive safety difference…
And still one cyclist died!
Clearly, more needed
Ummm, that was my point? Multi-lane is a safety difference. For the worse. Much for the worse.
The question was: How is the Warkworth design better than Royal Oak? My answer was: It’s single-lane. Meaning that crossing distances are much shorter, drivers are much less likely to miss other road users when checking, and the overall design, even for the same maximum vehicle size, can be tighter. Thus, this design, wile not necessarily perfect, was reasonably safe and useful for people on bikes and on foot (and also safer for drivers, but they need the improvement a bit less deperately).
The cyclist dies on Royal Oak roundabout a long distance from the roundabout due to someone opening a car door on them – nothing to do with the roundabout.
The worst part is the size of it, entrances right next to each other makes it very hard to judge who goes next. This looks similar in the images, maybe it’s bigger than it looks.
“One thing I do know is that the community in Warkworth is certainly taking notice of what’s happening, and will not be taking this lying down.”
LMAO yes they will. They’ll re-elect National and a National MP, just watch.
When was the last competent Transport Minister?
Whatever the answer Simeon has to be the worst of the bad bunch.
Good point. Was Simon Bridges the best in the last 20 years? Shocking really.
Wood did some good things, but had he spent $60 billion on two projects (LR and Harbour) that would have been such a bad outcome it may make him the worst.
Money is funny..because IF Wood had built LR and a harbour crossing, 5 years after it was built people would have forgotten the price and would be calling him the greatest Transport Minister to walk the face of the earth.
What was the last competent transport decision?
I’m thinking clean car discount, and funding for hundred kms of median barrier (undelivered)
Both green party policies weren’t they?
Here’s the thing though – Brown and Penk are safe as houses in their respective seats – the people of Warkworth aren’t going to end a habit of a lifetime, and suddenly not overwhelmingly vote National because of this intersection.
However, Carlos Cheung and Paulo Garcia might end up as collateral damage.
Yes, they are both in safe seats but that doesn’t give them carte blanche to ignore their electorate. Under MMP they face three elections; seat selection, party list selection (ranking) and the general election. They have to win two out of the three and their electorate can make both of the first two problematic for them without National losing the seat or the election. The party would also be pretty pissed at having to put too many resources into winning a seat like Penk’s.
Under MMP pork barrel politics is not as simple as it was under FPP.
There is also, apparently, Erica Stanford supporting her community in wanting safe speeds in their streets (but presumably wanting to drive at unsafe speeds through everyone elses…)
On a lighter note.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bpfallon/9353516745
A really good post that explains the situation very well. Farewell to local democracy and hello, autocratic micro-management. This reveals a subtle aspect of the GPS that makes any improvement that is wanted locally for walking or biking, for all the economic benefits of taking some of the cars off the road, impossible to include in NLTF funding, making those improvements a burden on Council to fund through rates. Since the rates burden is not likely to be welcome, the ability of Council to fund the large number of projects excluded from NLTF means that safety and accessibility projects become harder to achieve.
I want to see at least some Councils front up with the missing national budget, to keep faith with their communities and show up the Minister’s nonsensical weirdness.
I agree that this probably was the worst intersection in NZ but now there is half the traffic, maybe its OK or good enough for now? There are a lot of other things competing for funding, ferries, hospitals, etc. and times are tough with the recession probably not ending for many months.
$18M for two 50km/h zone roundabouts isn’t particularly cheap.
A picture showing backed up traffic in 2020 isn’t relevant, as the bypass motorway opened on June 19, 2023
Anthony, we all agree that there are competing demands for government funding between education, health, transport etc and politicians are the ones we elect to steer the country’s budget through these competing demands. Within each spend area there are also competing demands for limited funding; Dunedin’s hospital versus Nelson’s hospital. In these, and in all cases we expect our elected representatives to consider fairly the needs and interests of all citizens.
What this article is highlighting is that the current Minister, with his directives on how the transport budget is to be spent, is unilaterally disenfranchising the legitimate interests of a significant portion of the population and at the same time yanking decision making away from communities.
This form of dictum pandering to the interests of only a portion of the population is a slippery slope, and I suggest you keep an eye on the US over the next little while to see how it plays out once things get a bit further down that slope.
I agree. If it was a purely financial decision, there would be criticism but it would be more understandable. But what we have here is a layout that the community has been consulted on and the criticism from the minister is that it provides too many safety features for people not in a car.
And you, Anthony, may have noted that some 10,000 new residents are expected to move in in the next few years and that this intersection is a critical point to go town centre and multiple schools. The new design would enable children or, more precisely, everyone to seek alternative modes of transport. That could be on the way to/from school, to the shops for for a drink after work.
Sounds like a Tui add “The government thinks it knows best”
Yeah right
It’s time that Penk fronted up to the people of Warkworth rather than hiding out in the West. He needs to show some spine, especially given his comments when in opposition
Too busy rolling back insulation standards because of some “too expensive to build houses” reckons from developer mates
Nor has he done anything to forward heavy rail to Huapai, which he supposedly supports, aside from a quip on his blog-website about the “bureaucracy” that prevents it
Dont moan you voted these two in so suck it up .Next time put your predudice aside and vote on policy not race .
Would be very curious to see what Simeon actually wants the intersection to look like?
Like does he have a vision of cars hurtling through urban roundabouts at speed? It’s not like going a bit faster there adds value as there are further light-controlled intersections just up the road.
He strikes me as immature, arrogant, and messianic in his view of his own role in driving policy. Worse than anything we’ve seen in a generation.
Thank you Connor for an excellent article in its summing up of our frustrations and anger resulting from Simeon Browns comments. We have not given up though and continue to work in the background to see if the Minister’s decision can be reversed. We have had meetings with the Chair of the Infrastructure Select Committee, and with the help of our Councillor Greg Sayers, seeking a meeting in the New Year with the Mayor, Chris Penk and Simeon Brown. To date the Mayor has been supportive although in the end this may not count for much given the past attitude of the Minister. Chris Penk through the co-chairing of the One Mahurangi Infrastructure and Transport Forum with me is aware of the towns position on Hill St so we hope that he will also advocate for us. I will keep everyone up to date if there is any progress.
Sounds a lot like no adaptability and the enemy of good is perfect.
This design doesn’t need raised tables, or judder bars. Remove those and it meets the requirements for funding (especially if council funds the off-road portion – cycle lanes itself).
The pedestrian crossing should be ok still (and that’s what’s needed not a raised table.
One final point, if the council really wants to waste money on unnecessary and pointless things then it can always add them later once the project is finished.
“The pedestrian crossing should be ok still (and that’s what’s needed not a raised table.”
Funny, that’s not what actual traffic engineering experts say, including the ones involved in this project before it reached Simeon’s attention.
Why are raised crossings such a hardship? Does it make you feel less manly somehow?
Raised crossings add hundreds of thousands to the cost of these projects. They cause additional environmental noise, additional wear and tear on vehicles, additional fuel consumption and pollution, and on top of that they slow responses by emergency vehicles and make it harder for cyclists.
Traffic engineers do whatever to justify their jobs be that adding on useless things or adding on costs for extra work.
Ah, the old lies and half-truths.
They don’t cost “hundreds of thousands”. That’s stuff the transport minister says holding a Herald article that later had to be retracted for blatant lies.
And even if so? A single death costs MORE than “hundreds of thousands”.
The added vehicle fuel consumption claim is somewhere between nonsense and trivial. You are braking and accelerating thousands of times during any normal trip. Doing that for a 100mm rise is nothing. But by making walking and cycling hostile, you are causing extra emissions and fuel costs, yes.
Raised tables are shown to be one of the BEST safety features ever, because they are self-enforcing. Proven with, you know, actual research, not reckons. They are “controversial” only in the same way that anything is that changes what a majority status quo population got used to as a fact of life – that drivers will always get their way.
Ahh yes the old they got the wrong figures…. Which is true if you’re only counting one small raised table, not several large ones on very busy roads that involve a lot more engineering and longer STMS. The whole intersection won’t be a speed zone as it’s too busy and complicated. A standard pedestrian crossing will do.
Yes they do increase emissions as well as wear and tear and noise pollution.
Not having a raised table isn’t going to stop people from using it when there’s a perfectly suitable marked pedestrian crossing that is used the world over.
Those hundreds of thousands could be better put to use building more footpaths/cycle infrastructure – it all adds up (some that is often lost on people in lalaland).
Ah yes, because screw parents with prams and people in wheelchairs, amirite? They’re so privileged to have pedestrian crossings at pavement level that oppress the poor ute drivers. /s
If pedestrians only get the bare minimum provision of infrastructure, then it’s only fair that drivers must also get minimum infrastructure too.
“Emissions” from speeding up and slowing down is nothing but skill issue. Research has shown that the optimum speed for low emissions in urban driving is a consistent 28.2km/h.
https://futuretransport.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Urban-Transport-Modelling-2022-05-16.pdf
But then again, Realist is very skilled at ignoring the reality of evidence when it comes to these things.
…and those emergency vehicles will not be going out as much to attend to car accidents at those said intersections/roundabouts.
What have prams etc got to do with it? A marked pedestrian crossing is just as easy to use as a raised one… just a heck of a lot quieter for those sleeping babies.
You love to point out research and facts yet completely ignore the physics of it smh.
For a mass like a vehicle to slow down and then accelerate (even if it is only from 30 down to 20) has nothing to do with “skill” as you put it, it simply is a matter of applying resistance of some type (typically brakes as downshifting which most cars no longer have isn’t sufficient), then accelerating again (wasting inertia in the process then using energy ie emissions to regain it). But what about EVs I hear you ask? Sure they capture some of the wasted energy while braking, but not all and there is still energy lost in the conversion to battery storage then discharge as it is used. But hey don’t let the “facts” and “research” bite you on the way out.
As for Grant, did that take you long to come up with that one? Having a good little giggle there?
Because they must have a dedicated fleet of emergency vehicles just for this intersection /s oh and no other emergency vehicle ever passes through what is effectively a choke point in this rapidly growing town.
“A marked pedestrian crossing is just as easy to use as a raised one”
For whom? You must have had a sheltered life.
Plenty of evidence on this one as well. Do you really think they go to the trouble of building them for fun?
If a raised table robs emergency vehicles of crucial time (its estimated to be 15secs) then you must be first in line to get rid of parking on major thoroughfares for 24/7 transit lanes, to be used by said responders when required?
Yep, there’s that, there is also that extreme congestion that they sometimes have to just turn off the sirens and chill until it moves. Dunno why people think speed tables are a problem, something that is going to encourage people to actually walk, cycle or catch PT as its actually habitable in their neighbourhood to out from behind a windscreen once calmed. Having less cars and congestion will make first responders lives a lot easier where it count.
But unfortunately, stupid simpleton takes are what earn large swaths votes. Explaining is losing and all that.
See the embedded 1 minute clip in this story about our favourite intersection today:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360517325/dashcam-video-shows-near-miss-involving-police-car-nzs-worst-intersection
“f Auckland Transport wish to advance this project, they will need to rework the design for the intersection to better align with the GPS and then re-submit it to NZTA for consideration of co-funding.”
SOLUTION: Remove the numerous speed humps, then resubmit the plan. This new plan should take no more than an hour to prepare.