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Allan Taylor made the most of a two-hour taxi crawl through Auckland roadworks disruption by phoning or emailing as many politicians as he could find details for on his laptop.
The Birkenhead architect says the cab took from midnight until 2am - and a fare of almost $130 - to drive him and his wife Teresa home from a Christmas party in Mission Bay.
Although the taxi steered clear of power cable trenches holding up traffic in Quay St, Mr Taylor says it took an hour to enter Spaghetti Junction from Grafton Gully.
That was because of a 5km traffic snarl-up back from Onewa Rd in Northcote, where the Transport Agency closed all northbound motorway lanes for 16 hours from 8.30pm on Saturday to demolish a disused bridge.
It was halfway through his ordeal, at about 1am, that Mr Taylor stirred up a hornet's nest with a message left on Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee's voicemail.
He also phoned Auckland Deputy Mayor David Hay and emailed local Northcote MP and new Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman, who he said replied to him from another taxi which took an hour to reach North Shore City from Viaduct Harbour.
Mr Lee is demanding far better co-ordination of roadworks between local councils and the Transport Agency, which is reviewing its traffic modelling in light of the weekend's fiasco.
Mr Taylor acknowledged the necessity of roadworks, but wondered why the agency could not have left it until after Christmas or have allocated two lanes from the motorway's southbound carriageway to traffic heading home from yuletide functions.
"The work has to done but what's busier than pre-Christmas?"
