Comments on: Northwest Motorway Widening

By: Marwan

Marwan — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:25:40 +0000

Im sorry but your views are deeply ignorant. Most of the population growth is due to natural increase. A NZ born child is a NZ born child, and is just that, regardless of their race. The babies born recently cause natural increase, births minus deaths. If we stop including the non euroean/ non maori kids then we get a very inaccrate picture.

By: The Trickster

The Trickster — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:32:44 +0000

Somebody is lying to you somewhere.

As a regular user of the cycleway I can guarantee that it almost never gets overrun by seawater (I’ve personally never see it and I’ve ridden it during some pretty nasty storms). You often see large puddles of fresh water after heavy rain, but never ever do you see sea water over the cycleway.

By: Deno

Deno — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:10:00 +0000

Yes I dont see the justification of a full motorway north.It would be far more cost effective to up grade SHI to 4 lanes with a seperation barrier with deviations around Warkworth and Wellsford.
Hence my suggestion of a robust highway network.

By: admin

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:31:06 +0000

Deno, I guess the thing is that if the road between Puhoi and Wellsford only carries around 10,000-15,000 vehicles a day (the same as Sandringham Road), how can it be justifiable to spend $2.3 billion turning it into a motorway?

Surely its benefits won’t justify the enormous cost. Surely the money would be better spent elsewhere? The same argument with building a motorway to Tauranga – would it really be justifiable? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to use the existing rail networks more efficiently somehow?

By: Deno

Deno — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:03:23 +0000

I am a supporter of finishing a robust motorway and highway network by 2020 linking Northland /Auckland /Bay Of Plenty and Waikato supported by double tracked commercial rail that allows PAX without hinderance on key population corridors and ports.
To have a quantum shift in congestion.I see the need in moving heavy transport from urban Auckland to the regions where hub and spoke movements from Marsden Port and Mt Maunganui ports to the industrial areas of south Auckland and North Shore frees up significant heavy transport in the central Auckland isimus.This does mean moving the containerisation and motor vehicle activities of Auckland Port to outside Auckland.Double tracking the upper north island rail system will allow unhindered within region and inter region commercial activity alongside PAX.Free flowing super arteries that will allow accelerated inter regional growth and mitigation of a significant amount of urban Aucklands traffic conjestion

By: admin

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:27:18 +0000

There’s a fairly good argument that Auckland’s real transport problems exist because we have poor arterial routes. Therefore, our motorways effectively form the function of the arterials and the long-distance strategic routes in one – therefore getting incredibly busy and congested.

Generally I find these days the biggest traffic issues relate to getting on the motorway at peak times. Once you’re there, things are pretty sweet.

By: Nick R

Nick R — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:24:52 +0000

And another problem that seems to get left out of these kinds of discussions, the motorways are just the highest order on the hierarchy of roads. This means if you widen the top order you must generally widen the lower orders, or in other terms it also puts more traffic onto interchanges, collector roads and local streets.

Once the VPT is complete the motorway through St Marys Bay will be four traffic lanes and one bus lane southbound, five traffic lanes and a bus shoulder northbound, so basically 11 lanes wide.

By: admin

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:43:06 +0000

But Nicholas, you’ve just described in great detail how Auckland has tried hard, yet failed miserably, to build its way out of congestion. Why would things change in the future? Wider motorways just encourage more traffic to use them, so any gains are quickly eaten up. Hence the pointlessness of continuously widening motorways further and further.

Actually, somewhat ironically I think that the narrower motorways around Auckland are generally the less congested while the wider motorways generally seem to be the most congested (Victoria Park viaduct excluded).

By: Nicholas O'Kane

Nicholas O'Kane — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:38:59 +0000

“The stretch of the southern motorway between Khyber Pass Rd and Gillies Ave is 10 lanes wide currently”
I’ve just spent the last half hour looking at Aucklands motorways using google street view, and amazed how big they are. I imagined most were 4 laned with a few 6 lane bits for the really busy parts for the CBD as in Wellington, but it seems (correct me if I’m wrong)

Northern/Southern motorway: Puhoi-Constellation Drive 4 lanes
Constellation Drive-Tristham ave 5 lanes (3 north, 2 south)
Tristham Ave-Onewa Road 6 lanes
Onewa Road-Fanshaw Street 8 lanes
Fanshaw street-SH16 4 lanes (this is the narrow bit, but will be fixed by the Vic Park tunnel)
SH16-Grafton Gully 6 lanes (only looking at the direct Northern motorway-Southern motorway part of Spagheti junction, I now see why it got that name)
Garfton Gully-Khyber Pass Road 9 lanes (5 southbound, 4 northbound)
Khyber Pass Road-Gillies Ave 10 lanes (amazing)
Gillies Ave-Hill Road 6 lanes
Hill Road-Pokeno 4 lanes

The Southwest motorway looks 4 lanes its entire length. and I didn’t bother with the Northwest as it is shown above. I understand the Newmarket Viaduct replacement will add an extra southbound lane to the Gillies Ave-Greenlane section, and the Victoria park tunnel two extra lanes south and one extra lane north. And the new Mangere bridge will make the bridge 4 laned, and the Queenstown Rd-SH20A 6 laned.

I almost feel like saying with roads like the ones you will have, who needs public transport.

I’m actually getting to think that with all these supermotorways, Auckland MIGHT just be able to build its way out of congestion (at a huge cost).

By: admin

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:17:17 +0000

Yeah the lack of emloyment opportunities is a real problem out west. But I think where that employment is concentrated is also important, Office parks in East Tamaki and Albany may provide employment opportunities but I hardly think that they have done much good for traffic congestion – if anything the opposite is true as they are so hard to serve well with public transport.