Onewa Rd flyover not a goer, says Hodgson

Transport Minister Pete Hodgson is warning Northcote and Birkenhead residents not to expect free access to the Northern Motorway from a new $37 million interchange from crowded Onewa Rd.

Although the interchange will provide a dedicated lane for buses and high-occupancy vehicles to join the motorway from 2009, Mr Hodgson told a public meeting in Northcote last night there would always have to be traffic lights to prevent jams on the harbour bridge.

He dismissed a proposed flyover of the Sylvan Ave intersection with Onewa Rd, which the Northcote Residents Association and National Party leader Don Brash say is needed to prevent long and frustrating delays for traffic trying to get to Auckland.

Mr Hodgson's appearance in the electorate held by Deputy Speaker Ann Hartley reflects a heated election contest building up over congestion facing commuters heading for the bridge.

The costlier flyover proposal is aimed at removing traffic lights from the intersection, but residents association chairman Jeremy Sole denied a claim by the minister that the plan - rejected by Transit NZ - would have no bus priority lane.

Mr Hodgson said he was "pleased and surprised" that the association would not oppose such a feature.

But Mr Sole, a former National candidate for Northcote, said this had always been the association's position and it also accepted a need for some form of regulation of traffic headed for the harbour bridge.

"We would just like some intelligent form reflecting traffic going to the motorway rather than waiting 40 to 50 minutes in Onewa Rd and then taking five minutes to get to Newmarket."

The minister called the existing Sylvan Ave traffic lights a "rough example" of a new system Transit is proposing of regulating the flow of vehicles on to all Auckland motorway ramps.

He said the new interchange would be controlled by lights of a more sophisticated kind, in a system called ramp-metering. "Over a quarter of the traffic that travels across the bridge into Auckland travels down Onewa Rd.

"That's why the interchange upgrade matters - it is also why the interchange will never be uncontrolled."

Mr Hodgson said priority lanes for buses were in the interests not just of their passengers, but of motorists, for helping to reduce congestion and giving them clearer passage.

"The reason is that a busload of people just left 50 cars in their garages - it is an opportunity that the [North] Shore should seize with both hands."

He said the $290 million Northern Busway now finally under construction had been starved of funding under National, which he said lost office in 1999 with just $130 million of large transport projects being built in Auckland, compared with $1300 million now.

"Funding for public transport in Auckland has more than trebled since the change of government."