V8 race threatens to halve bridge traffic

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Transit New Zealand's Auckland office is warning of dramatic effects on traffic if city streets are closed for motor racing.

Its regional director for strategy and traffic, Terry Brown, said yesterday that if the V8 Supercar Championship Series races came to inner Auckland, the number of vehicles using the harbour bridge would have to be halved during the proposed Friday-to-Sunday event.

"To manage traffic effectively, one would have to reduce the demand by 50 per cent on the harbour bridge." he said.

Average daily bridge traffic of 155,000 vehicles would have to be cut dramatically to squeeze on to the four-lane Victoria Park viaduct, which is already packed by 88,000 cars, trucks and buses a day.

The city's Fanshawe St link to the motorway - including bus lanes - would be blocked during races around Victoria Park at up to 300km/h an hour.

Cook St and Ponsonby would be the main routes in and out of the central city area.

An Auckland City Council delegation led by recreation and events committee chairman Scott Milne is in Adelaide to observe how that city copes with hosting its leg of the 13-stage V8 series this weekend.

The committee agreed behind closed doors last week to lodge a joint bid with global events company IMG to stage the race in Auckland for seven years from 2006, after the expiry of a contract to run it in Pukekohe.

As well as street closures during race days, there would be almost three weeks of lesser disruption to traffic from erecting and then dismantling heavy concrete barriers around a 2.6km track, which would reach Hobson St.

Mr Brown was reluctant to predict whether Transit would oppose having the race in Auckland.

He said he had prepared a preliminary report which he first had to present next month to the roading authority's board in Wellington.

"It's a huge challenge. I can't say it is insurmountable, but we have never achieved that sort of reduction."

North Shore Mayor George Wood said his council had not been consulted on Auckland's proposal, despite the difficulties it would raise for his city's residents.

"It's our lifeline, the harbour bridge. If there is substantial congestion it will raise issues about people needing to get to the airport, getting to hospital, and for people in struggle street going to work with mortgages to pay."

Mr Wood wondered why Mr Milne's delegation had gone to Adelaide for its research, as he believed the layout of that city's streets would mean less disruption from motor racing there than in Auckland.

"Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for them to go to Monaco," he said in reference to the European principality famous for its Grand Prix.

But Mr Milne said from Adelaide that the Australian city faced tighter constraints than Auckland in hosting motor racing as its population was more concentrated in the centre.

He said he had already inspected the course, and had learned "more in two hours than George Wood would learn in a week at Monaco".

Mr Milne said holding the Auckland race during April school holidays would mean about 25 per cent less traffic disruption than in normal times, and he believed good planning and notification to motorists would enable the region to cope.

He envisaged including boat ferry transport in race ticket prices - "and there are going to be more North Shore people wanting to participate [in the event] than wanting to go to work."