Rail line closure adds to traffic mayhem in Wellington

Traffic delays as holiday-goers head out of the capital for New Years. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Closure of the Kapiti rail line has exacerbated holiday traffic along the Kapiti Coast as would-be train passengers have been forced to travel by bus on congested roads.

The line between Porirua and Waikanae closed on Boxing Day and is not expected to reopen until Tuesday, January 3.

KiwiRail has defended the closure of the line telling Fairfax it needed to fix "years of deterioration" on the tracks.

The company told Fairfax the work was planned and consulted on over many months, and the holiday closure fell at a time when it would have the least impact on commuters.

Repairs include a revamp of the tracks at Paekakariki, where speed limits at the State Highway 1 intersection have been cut to just 30km/h.

Kapiti Coast resident Lynn Sleath told Fairfax there was "an obvious connection" between the closure and the level of traffic on the road in the past few days.

"I'm watching all these people driving in their cars and some of them are going to Taupo and distances away, but a lot are just doing local trips, and a lot of those folks could be on the train," Sleath told Fairfax.

He said while the work at Paekakariki seemed "perfectly reasonable", it was going slowly and would have been better done overnight.

"If this was Wellington airport runway, or a state highway being repaired, they'd get it done quickly, they'd minimise the disruption," Sleath said.

Sleath told Fairfax the bus service was often not running to schedule because of the traffic mayhem, with 11 online messages sent to him on Tuesday alone, alerting him to delays.

Fairfax said another commuter had to change buses three times on a trip between Kapiti and Wellington because of the closure.