Opinion: Tauranga's traffic getting worse with every year

Another year, another leap in congestion. Photo / File

What a shock to the system yesterday morning was for me - and not for the jet lag either.

I've just come back from a holiday in Bali and was feeling pleasantly relaxed and refreshed, ready to return to the office, when I drove out of my driveway and into a horrendous queue of traffic.

I live on the eastern side of Welcome Bay, past the shopping centre, and the traffic at 7.10am stretched past my street.

After seeing posts on Facebook about how bad the traffic was this year I thought I'd better leave five minutes earlier for my 7.30am start.

What a joke.

I made it through the door at 7.50am.

The trip to the office is a bit under 8km, a drive that takes 10 minutes off-peak. That's 1km every five minutes.

The main choke points I noticed yesterday were the Welcome Bay Rd intersections with Waitaha Rd, James Cook Dr and Kaitemako Rd.

James Cook Dr was the worst and has been for a while, although not this early in the morning.

Cars were treating the intersection like a lane merge - it wasn't just every second or third driver stopping to let a waiting car in, the traffic was stopped completely with one car at a time from each road continuing on.

It took 20 minutes to get past this intersection alone and was the single most time-consuming part of my journey, worse than the Turret Rd lane merge.

Every year, the traffic gets worse.

I've lived in Welcome Bay nearly five years now and each February, when school goes back, the drive to work has taken longer than the previous February.

It's a pattern I'm sure is being repeated across the city and one that is causing huge frustration for motorists like myself.

We need plausible alternatives to private car transport - and we need them fast.