A South Auckland resident kept awake by trucks roaring down his suburban street says he has no other option than to follow the advice of the Deputy Mayor and start taking sleeping pills.
"Thundering" trucks diverted from Auckland's Southern Motorway to a residential street are keeping bleary-eyed residents awake at night, with one saying he has been forced to start taking sleeping pills.
Papakura resident Kerry Nairn said the noise in his Elliott St home from passing trucks is so bad he often struggles to get to sleep before four or five in the morning - a complaint echoed by others living along the road.
The problem started earlier this year when NZ Transport Agency began closing off the Southern Motorway at night to allow work crews to add more traffic lanes as part of a $268 million improvement project.
But instead of sticking to NZTA's prescribed detour route along Great South and Beach Rds, heavy trucks with trailers have instead been using Elliott St as a shortcut.
Auckland Transport said it can't stop motorists from veering off the official detour route and that Elliott St is an "arterial road" designed to take heavy trucks and high amounts of traffic.
But Nairn is imploring authorities to intervene, saying the trucks are speeding "out of control" down the street most nights, with no respect for sleeping residents.
"I can already hear them turning down Elliott St from the intersection," he said.
"And the noise - they just roar down here, it is horrendous, the house shakes, all the plates shake in the kitchen, it goes all night."
While Nairn's is in a thinly insulated wooden home with a bedroom close to the road, he is not the only one reaching for the earplugs each night.
Next door neighbour Fiona Jensen works for a trucking company but said even she and her daughter with rooms at the back of their house find the noise incredibly loud.
"If you're not asleep by 10pm before the motorway closes, you are awake all night," she said.
Papkura resident Kerry Nairn has been pulling out the sleeping pills after being kept awake all night by passing trucks. Photo / NZ Herald
Another resident, who did not wish to be named said she saw a logging truck loaded with trees pass down the street earlier this week and that she is also jarred awake by the rattle and clank of empty truck trailers hitting potholes.
NZ Transport Agency's Chris Hunt said closures and detours were a necessary part of completing major roadworks on the motorway.
The agency has received three complaints about detoured traffic in 2018, with two of the complaints coming from Nairn.
After one of Nairn's complaints, NZTA started setting up a temporary "Residents Access Only" sign on Elliott St each time it closed the motorway, Hunt said.
Auckland Transport said it had only received complaints from Nairn and then wrote back to him, saying "it is not feasible to physically ensure that all drivers use the designated diversion route".
Having complained to everyone from NZTA and AT to Mayor Phil Goff and National's Papakura MP Judith Collins without luck, Nairn said he was forced to get sleeping pills from his doctor this week as a "band-aid solution".
He said he's never seen any signs set up to keep motorists off Elliott St and would like the NZTA or AT to go further by setting up a plastic roadblock manned by two workers, but isn't holding much hope of it happening.
"It is just a simple solution, but they are not willing to even look at it," he said.
"It wouldn't cost that much for two people to be employed on night shifts."
