KEY POINTS:
I live overlooking Grafton Bridge, which is now closed except for foot traffic. Every day I see scooters using it. Is this allowed? Murray Harris, Grafton.
I'm assuming the scooters you mean are of the Vespa type, rather than little-person-propelled ones.
All the literature I can find suggests that since the closure of the bridge to vehicle traffic, only pedestrians and cyclists are allowed to use it.
These restrictions will stay in force until early 2010, when the bridge re-opens for its 100th birthday.
The upgraded bridge will then be able to withstand a one-in-1000-year earthquake, and carry up to 1200 buses a day.
During the rebuilding, the bridge's columns will be strengthened with reinforced steel bars, and the beams will be bolstered with carbon fibre.
There will also be some restoration work, including repairing cracks in the concrete, removing algal growth, and replacing joints and bearings.
And a bit of exotic but ultimately useless information. Grafton Bridge spans about 97.6m and rises to 25.6m above the abutments, to a height of around 43m above Grafton Gully.
To dispel doubts about the strength of the still relatively untested type of construction, at the opening in April 1910 two steamrollers were driven across the bridge. Brave men.
Can you tell me how the kerbside recycling bins can possibly end up separating glass from tin and plastic and paper when the whole bin is lifted high and the mixed contents dumped into the collecting truck? Cherie Devliotis, Takapuna.
It is another miracle of modern engineering. A new high-tech recycling operation in Onehunga uses automated screens, magnets and optical machines to do the sorting.
The $21.9 million Visy Materials Recovery Facility can separate glass, paper and cardboard, and also sort steel from aluminium cans. It can process 23 tonnes an hour.
Are there rules about queuing across intersections, and if so, how are they enforced? The introduction of traffic lights on the onramps to the Northern Motorway is now causing peak-hour traffic queues to back up into the surrounding streets. One problem area in particular is the intersection of Union and Wellington Sts in the CBD. Cars waiting to turn from Union into Wellington but wanting to go straight ahead and not turn on to the motorway onramp frequently have to endure several light changes because of cars blocking the intersection. Would painting yellow grid lines and fining offenders help? Michael Pusinelli, Auckland.
The Road Code states very clearly that a driver must not go into or attempt to cross an intersection, railway level crossing, pedestrian crossing or an area controlled by pedestrian traffic signals unless there is space for the vehicle on the other side of the intersection or crossing.
There is a fine attached to breaking this rule, although I do not know how much it is.
And I'm not at all convinced about the efficacy of cross-hatched yellow lines at intersections.
From observation, intersection blocking occurs at almost every corner in the city, especially at peak times, so the message would tend to be diluted if every intersection was hatched.
