Get moving: Victoria Park tunnel one cure for queue cheats

The Victoria Park tunnel study has begun. Picture / Martin Sykes

I am a regular commuter from the North Shore to the city. Every day there is congestion at St Marys Bay, which some blame on the Victoria Park flyover. It's my belief this is caused by people who refuse to join a queue of traffic but instead drive in the adjacent lane and then push in. The way to fix it would be to ban queue-jumpers in lanes two and three. Has Transit considered this, or are they planning some sort of remedy? Alan Moore, Forrest Hill.

This deplorable behaviour is not confined to St Marys Bay. Cruisers, or drivers who use less-congested lanes to avoid a queue and then bull their way in, are endemic throughout the city. However, what prompts the cruiser to materialise at this point is the capacity of the flyover. The average weekday flow city-wards on the Harbour Bridge is 8300 an hour. About 1300 leave the motorway at Shelly Beach Rd and a further 2800 use the Fanshawe St ramp. This leaves about 4200 vehicles an hour wanting to cross the flyover, which is the very top end of its capacity. Relief is in sight, though. Drilling has started in Victoria Park to test the land for a tunnel, which would provide three underground, one-way lanes northbound, leaving the existing four-lane viaduct as southbound lanes. An extra lane each way would also be built above ground between the tunnel and the harbour bridge. If resource consent is granted, construction would start in 2008 and take about six years.

How will the construction of the State Highway 20 (Mt Roskill) motorway affect the residents of Hendry Ave in Hillsborough? Will the extension be too close to the residents' houses? Digna Patel, Hillsborough.

The bit of motorway that runs close to Hendry Ave is already built, so the extension will not alter this. Richard Hancy of Transit says there might be some who use Hendry Ave to bypass congestion, but when the extension is finished, in 2009, this "rat-running" should stop as it will be faster to go by motorway.

Are there any plans to reseal Rosebank Rd in Avondale? The seal is breaking up badly in several places. Janette Carbury, Avondale.

No. But the council will keep an eye on it and patch it up as it needs it. What a relief.