KEY POINTS:
Your traffic questions answered.
Whoever is responsible does a great job in planting out and making newly completed motorway embankments look good. The same cannot be said about the ongoing upkeep. Where plants have been destroyed or they die, they are not replaced. Does anyone have a responsibility to maintain the plantings, and what is the policy on replacement?
- Derek Harries, Drury.
Transit says the landscaping of motorways is important, not just to make them look good and to soften the appearance of roading, but to reduce mowing, graffiti damage and illegal dumping, and to help with pest control. Transit designs the plantings to be low maintenance, often putting in fast-growing low plants, backed up by larger trees. New plantings can take a while to become established. So yes, they are watching and they do care.
In the mornings I turn left off the Northern Motorway and head east on Tristram Rd to Forrest Hill Rd. I know there are major roadworks associated with the busway, but lately I have been confronted with oncoming vehicles in my lane. Motorists use this lane to get to Wairau Rd and get past all the stationary traffic trying to access the motorway. This is madness and very dangerous. Can anything be done?
- Judy Leishman, North Shore.
Thanks Judy. Transit contractors and the North Shore City Council are now looking at how this practice can be stopped. Temporary barriers are an option, as is having a police presence in the morning. You, the offending drivers, have been warned.
We live in Hendry Ave in Hillsborough. While the Mt Roskill motorway extension is well under way, we are not sure what the plans are for our street. Whilst a wooden sound barrier has been put up, it looks ugly and incomplete when seen from Hendry Ave. What is the final design for this fence, will the aluminium fence go, and what about the concrete slabs?
- Sukumar Verma, Hillsborough.
The concrete slabs will form part of a planter box, with the wooden fence providing a frame for climbing plants. The planting plan includes flaxes, flowers and climbers, which should all be ready for spring flowering.
Recent tagging on the fence hasn't added any artistic value, so Transit is cleaning it up. The idea is that the climbing plants will make the fence harder to tag. The plan is weather-dependent, as is all gardening, but the residents in your street should see some improvement soon.
But Transit is a bit confused about the aluminium fence. It's not one of theirs, and they're not sure where it is or comes from.