KEY POINTS:
Word on the street is that Transit will be closing the Onewa Rd interchange for 18 months while it builds a new and improved version. Please say it isn't so. Ryan Bradley, Rodney District, and Beverly Johnson, Birkenhead.
All right. It isn't so. It's just the Onewa Rd southbound offramp, and it closed yesterday. The closure will enable two new bridges to be built, to separate the southbound offramp and onramp traffic and make things safer. There are alternative routes, at the Northcote Rd offramp and the new Esmonde Rd offramp. And the Onewa Rd southbound onramp, which carries up to 18,000 vehicles each day, all heading for the harbour bridge, will remain open. The work is all part of the Northern Busway project.
With the new link from Highbrook Drive to the Southern Motorway now finished, are there any plans to upgrade the stretch of Smales Rd between Harris Rd and Te Irirangi Drive by the old Greenmount tip? Steve Keys, Auckland.
There certainly are. Work will begin in the next two to three months to improve the tight bend just past Snave Place. The rest of the work, including an upgrade of the Harris Rd intersection, will happen in the next three to five years as land becomes available.
I've just bought a scooter to ease the commute to work. I know I'm allowed in bus lanes, but does this include stretches marked Bus Only, for example the bit of Wellesley St East between Mayoral Drive and Queen St? Also, can I turn right from a buses-only left-hand lane, such as at the intersection of Mt Eden Rd and Symonds St? Paul Brown, Auckland.
No and no. Buses only means just that, whether it is a lane or a turn.
* Bouquet: Robert Kingston wrote last year about the Ellerslie-Panmure southbound offramp, asking if Transit New Zealand could mark the lanes for left- and right-turning vehicles. Transit said at the time that it would see what could be done. Well, it has done it, and Mr Kingston is very happy. Well done, Transit.