Views from where the rubber meets the road

Herald readers have their say about Auckland's traffic problems.


This morning, I left home in Massey at 7.20 am to go to work in Penrose via the city, where I drop off my daughter - a journey that usually takes 40-45 minutes. I arrived at work a few minutes after 9 am.

Last night, I was on Great South Rd at rush-hour, avoiding the motorway, and was stuck in a queue from Campbell Rd to Greenlane Rd for almost half an hour before I could join the motorway queue.

Last Wednesday, I was supposed to fly to Palmerston North on the 8.25 am flight. I left home at 7.10 for a journey that would have taken 25-35 minutes outside the rush-hour. I missed the flight.

All in all, the attraction of Auckland has taken a severe (albeit temporary, I hope) dive over the past week or so and for this one reason only.

Gary Sutcliffe.

Any scheme to relieve pressure on Spaghetti Junction and the Harbour Bridge approaches by diverting this traffic somewhere else has got to be worth looking at. My suggestion is to extend the Southern Motorway from Tip Top Corner to Glen Innes (as per the contentious Hobson Bay scheme) but then build a road tunnel beneath Purewa Cemetery, Hobson Bay and the harbour, to meet the Northern Motorway at Shoal Bay.

This tunnel would be 11km long (not the longest road tunnel in the world, but close) and would be so expensive I can't imagine any Government would approve it, but it would be a very attractive toll route for commercial vehicles and commuters because of its directness and therefore short travel time.

It would also negate the need for a second harbour bridge, and at least delay the need to link up all the various bits that comprise the Wiri-Hobsonville-Albany route.

John Lankow.

Ban all cars carrying fewer than three passengers from the motorway system during the periods 8-9 am and 5-6 pm. This guarantees fast trips during peak-hour but only if commuters use buses or carpool. I think commuters will gladly pay that price for such immediate relief.

Chris Marshall.

As a boy, it was a bit of school holiday fun to hang around the earthworks at the junction of West Coast and Croydon Rds, Glen Eden. The plan was to ease the steep grade there, part of a forward-looking scheme to double the suburban line between Auckland and Waitakere. Sixty years on and the line is still largely single track. What a monument to progress!

Is it too much to hope that it will not be 60 more years before West Auckland is served by efficient, modern rail units and a double track all the way from the CBD to Helensville?

Grant Howard.

Is everybody crazy? You have received many letters from commuters whose cars remain unused between 9 am and 4 pm, complaining about congestion on our motorway system. The train on the southern line runs every 15 minutes at rush-hour. The buses from Papakura to Downtown run every 15 minutes for most of the day, taking the motorway at peak times. If people want a more flexible public transport system, they should use the one we have. Increased custom would allow the companies to put on more buses and trains.

Gareth Karl.

I spend the equivalent of one whole month in each year in a traffic jam. I despair of Auckland ever doing a proper job on its public transport.

I've just returned from Wellington and a new stadium where parking costs $30. After the big game, train after train lines up right outside to clear the crowd of 30,000 in half an hour.

For the present, I am one of those poor commuters where the 12km journey from Beach Haven to central Auckland takes 15 minutes in good times to nearly 90 minutes in bad.

K. Stevens.

I moved here two months ago from Vancouver, Canada to attend Auckland University. I simply want to be able to get there on time and in one piece.

Auckland has one of the worst public transit systems I have ever encountered. Buses are old and belching black smoke. Schedules can rarely be relied upon. I spend $6 a day for the pleasure of standing on a crowded bus for two hours.

A million-plus people need to get around the city and currently they're all either stuck somewhere between Hobson St and Greenlane or waiting, valiantly, in a bus stand in the middle of Onehunga. It's the 21st century Auckland. Time to get on the bus.

Allison Young.

I leave Whenuapai around 7.15 am every weekday morning to get to my workplace in Newmarket. Two years ago, the tail of the Northwestern Motorway traffic was somewhere around Lincoln Rd. Now, it is well on to Hobsonville Rd at the start of the motorway. On a very good morning, my drive into work will take about an hour.

I find that one of the biggest problems is the Massey on-ramp where two lanes of Massey traffic are having to merge into one motorway lane.

Nikki Hayman.

Sir Dove-Myer Robinson was aware of the need for rail as early as 1974. The past 26 years have been wasted by lazy, shortsighted, visionless leaders who have either no awareness of the city's needs or no concerns for them. Rail will work, and we need it desperately. It does in Copenhagen, it does in Helsinki, Sydney, Mexico City, Singapore, and in a million other cities as spread out and strangely shaped as Auckland.

David Brown.

With the introduction of more buses, limited-stop buses and bus lanes, I find that the bus trip is much quicker. Now I can be confident of getting into town in a 10 or 15-minute trip during rush-hour and not having to worry about where to park. Perhaps extending this to other areas of Auckland would help the traffic problem.

Tavish Fraser.

About 15 months ago the two-lane flow of traffic along Dominion Rd and Mt Eden Rd was stopped to provide a bus lane during peak times. This doubled the travel time to 30 minutes. The logic of this decision escapes me if it has not provided a proportional increase in public transport success. I believe the bulk of funding should go into creating better roads.

W.D. Houston.

There should be an incentive to ride motorcycles - more parking spaces for them, or maybe dropping the registration fee for a bike. At present the fee is nearly the same as for a car.

Brendon Nash.