Ask Phoebe: Inner-city parkers must pay

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We live in the inner city. The street is all pay and display parking 24hrs 7days a week apart from a loading zone area which has a sign stating: "Loading zone 5mins Mon-Sun 8am - 6pm".

Does this sign mean we can park in the loading zone after 6pm and before 8am without having to pay and display? Jacqui Furness, Auckland.

No. The sign means this is a loading zone during the specified hours only. Outside these hours, the same conditions apply as they do to the rest of the street i.e. it becomes part of the pay and display zone.

There seems to be a lot of confusion among car drivers regarding the rules that are applicable when the T2 motorway onramp lights are switched off. Opinions differ as to whether cars should use them at all when the lights are off. Other drivers say you can use them but you must have two people in the car. Yet again some drivers say that it doesn't matter if there is only one person - you can still use them when the lights are off. Are you able to clarify
please? Tom Higham, Piha.

T2, or transit lanes, or, to give them their correct moniker, managed priority lanes, may be used only by vehicles with two or more occupants, or trucks, or any vehicles indicated by the signage. It does not matter whether or not the onramp lights are operating or not.

Are there any future plans to extend the Wynyard Quarter tramline? The current loop around the wasteland of ex-tank land is pointless.

While the Wynyard Quarter will one day be an amazing asset, I simply can't fathom why the tramline doesn't run through to Britomart via Fanshawe St bus land or the Te Whero bridge in a loop.

Otherwise we are left with a resource that is isolated and everyone has to walk or drive to. With the loop to Britomart anyone could catch a bus or train into town and then jump on a tram to the Wynyard Quarter. As it stands we are forcing them to drive and try to find a park. Mark Lloyd, Auckland.

The Auckland Waterfront Development Agency wants to use the circuit as a demonstration pilot for a possible light-rail extension across Viaduct Harbour to the Ferry Building, or perhaps even further.

At this stage the trams run clockwise on a 1.5km circuit of Wynyard Quarter - between Jellicoe, Halsey, Gaunt and Daldy Sts - to draw visitors to the developing precinct and to provide them with on-board information about its attractions. The council-controlled organisation hopes to borrow an electric light-railcar for demonstration purposes during the Rugby World Cup.

A $3.5 million pedestrian and cycling drawbridge reaching across the mouth of the harbour to Te Wero Island would need strong enough foundations to carry light-railcars, and work on new piles is well advanced.