Hard News: We can make things better here
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Richard Stewart, in reply to
Na the journey to the airport from Pt Chev via Maioro is a nightmare at any time through the day. A 2 minute backtrack to the St Lukes interchange could easily save 20 minutes.
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Sacha, in reply to
What the hell is going on down there?
Asphalt uber alles. This govt already made protecting urban trees harder as well. Gutting our RMA comes next. Let nothing stand before the profits of property developers.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Na the journey to the airport from Pt Chev via Maioro is a nightmare at any time through the day. A 2 minute backtrack to the St Lukes interchange could easily save 20 minutes.
Yep. It's a fraction of the actual distance to/from the airport but depending on time of day can easily account for 50% of the travel time.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I guess we'll end up seeing. If St Lukes bridge chokes, then 2 minutes to drive 1.5 km through 3 sets of lights to Western Springs, get over the bridge (2 sets of lights) and then through the on-ramp lights and then drive back 1.5 km in heavy traffic to pass within 50m of where you started might seem optimistic.
The other route has 7 sets of lights. I'd think that if 2 cars left simultaneously on the alternate routes, then by the time the motorway seeker was actually on the motorway by St Lukes Rd, the other car would have already crossed New North Rd. Then it's a race for the motorway car to cross 5km in the time it takes the other car to go 2km along Richardson, Stoddard and Maioro.
Will be interesting to see if there's much time saving for the extra 3 km (which also cost more in petrol or road-user charges).
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Russell Brown, in reply to
The other route has 7 sets of lights. I’d think that if 2 cars left simultaneously on the alternate routes, then by the time the motorway seeker was actually on the motorway by St Lukes Rd, the other car would have already crossed New North Rd. Then it’s a race for the motorway car to cross 5km in the time it takes the other car to go 2km along Richardson, Stoddard and Maioro.
The Great North Road lights are very quick. Otoh, you're sometimes looking at three phases to get over New North Road. And it's much worse coming back after 3pm.
For access from Avondale, Maioro Road is being widened to feed the interchange there.
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GarethD, in reply to
I can report anecdotally that the traffic on Urban Highway 15 (ie. Donovan/White Swan/Hillsborough) has not noticeably decreased as a result of SH20 opening nearby. It can still take around 5 mins waiting before I'm able to pull out of my driveway if I'm going across traffic during peak times.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Sure, but I've often had to wait 3 phases to get around the corner at Western Springs, coming from the west, and once you get onto the on-ramp you have flow-control lights that can take several minutes to get through. Then you contend at any time approaching rush hour with the motorway only going at a slow pace anyway. So I guess we'll see.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
This govt already made protecting urban trees harder as well.
"Dangerous tree. Please don't come close" the sign sees. Gotta watch those trees. They slow the wind, hold the soil in place, help keep erosion and desertification in check, turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, provide shade in the summer (and believe me, in mid-summer turning the corner onto the stretch of driveway the above dangerous tree shades is a huge relief). And, of course, trees have the temerity to sit right where road builders want to build roads.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
trees have the temerity to sit right where road builders want to build roads.
Which is their biggest sin. If the trees hadn't been there, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Bad trees! Naughty trees!
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Ben Gracewood, in reply to
Six months? From opening day I guarantee the city-bound morning traffic will be a clusterfuck. Remember the SH20 link to SH1 southbound at Manukau? That created (and still creates) a massive jam each evening as the two arterials merge into one.
The commuters of Mt Albert, Hilsborough, etc who previously filtered up Dominion, Sandringham and Mt Eden roads will now come through the tunnel and onto SH16. One extra city-bound lane is not going to accommodate them.
I'm glad I have a bike.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I expect they will have on-ramp flow control lights to deal with exactly this. It’s quite possible for the new flow from the tunnel during rush hour to be throttled back so that it doesn’t jam up SH16 (although it either has to slow SH16 down, or they have to throttle the SH16 on-ramps).
It is never going to be a no-brainer to use one route over another, because people compete to use resources. For the most part, similar routes tend to balance in the time they take, for the simple reason that people will choose the shortest route. So if the number of commuters remains the same, the tunnel will be a preferred choice for just enough people that it’s actually quicker for. The rest will use the existing routes, and be competing initially with fewer motorists. If commute times drop significantly, they’re often just hoovered back up by people making choices to commute rather than not, but that does take a lot longer to happen. In the meantime, added capacity can only be an overall good.
Some areas might actually get more choked, but we do have a very simple technology to adjust this, the taps on the motorway on-ramps.
ETA: Just checking, it looks like all the SH20 on-ramps already have those lights.
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Sacha, in reply to
In the meantime
Like Mr Gracewood, I believe that won't take long - especailly now that we have more drivers using real-time traffic apps and sites to guide their route choices.
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Sacha, in reply to
If commute times drop significantly, they’re often just hoovered back up by people making choices to commute rather than not
Yet traffic engineers prefer to pretend this common 'induced demand' does not exist when they do their modelling to justify moar roads.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I wonder (drunkenly) if such apps are statistically significant. Is an entire day's lag even going to show up in traffic flow, with hundreds of thousands of people making choices? By the time tomorrow rolls around even people who don't have smartphones know which way sucks more.
Yet traffic engineers prefer to pretend this common ‘induced demand’ does not exist when they do their modelling to justify moar roads.
I credit even knowing about the idea to a traffic engineer. Her Masters thesis was on "Pedestrian Crossings For the Disabled" so we're not talking about some Randroid here. It was like the Market Efficiency Theory of traffic, the kind of thing they all know about, but only the right wingers actually believe with enough lust to base decisions on. And if it wasn't true, they'd have invented it anyway.
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Carma?
Crash holds up Car Show traffic
Eventually even the thickest driver will realise that they are part of the problem...
Roads Scholars?
Down here our traffic engineers are a tad more holistic and nihilistic about congestion...it was not a case of "just solving the red [heavily congested points]".
"If we solved Brougham St, for example, we could be pushing it onto another area. We have to look at the network as a whole," he said.
"We need to find out what variability in journey time is OK."
Harland said a network without congestion could not be designed.it's the physics of the affair, ya understand...
...and now for something a little less pedestrian...
filmed not in Calvary but in the portals of imagination o'erlooking the much mired municipality of Chchch.
(perhaps it should be FenChch?) -
Chris Waugh, in reply to
that they are part of the problem…
And what's this? I seem to have found myself agreeing with Rodney Hide. I feel... unusual.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
all a-flutter...
I feel… unusual.
welcome to the
looking glass world
Chris,
Alice,
emerge... -
Bart Janssen, in reply to
city-bound morning traffic will be a clusterfuck
That is not entirely the point. There is not that much you can do about peak hour traffic without getting people to use mass transit.
But what is more important is that outside peak hours a large amount of traffic will be removed from roads like the suburban arterial routes. In particular, a lot of heavy traffic (trucks and goods vehicles) during the day will choose to use a road actually designed for heavy traffic.
Nobody is expecting Waterview to solve every problem but a lot of groups who are otherwise very critical of roading have stated quite clearly that this connection is worthwhile. Bicycle seat critics notwithstanding, I tend to agree with them.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
But what is more important is that outside peak hours a large amount of traffic will be removed from roads like the suburban arterial routes. In particular, a lot of heavy traffic (trucks and goods vehicles) during the day will choose to use a road actually designed for heavy traffic.
Yes. SH20 at the moment is an uncompleted motorway that currently disgorges into suburban streets that shouldn’t have to handle heavy motorway traffic. And on completion, it makes a route north that doesn’t pass through the central city and the harbour bridge. That’s a good thing.
Already, if I have to drive south of Auckland, I’ll generally take the Manukau route – it makes much more sense than driving into town to pile on the southern motorway.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Already, if I have to drive south of Auckland, I’ll generally take the Manukau route – it makes much more sense than driving into town to pile on the southern motorway.
But unless you use St Lukes, the tunnel doesn't actually make your own route have more motorway - you'll still be driving to Maoiro. Nor mine, despite living close west of the tunnel. I'll still have to drive to Maioro Rd. What I won't have to do is contend with people who would otherwise have turned off at Patiki, Pt Chev, or St Lukes, to get to south. So it's quite a big improvement really. And now I do have the option of doubling back to Patiki and using the tunnel, if it really is a lot faster, although time will tell on that.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
But unless you use St Lukes
I will use St Lukes. It's only slightly further away from where I turn into the main road than the Carrington Road corner is, and that intersection can be a real bugger to get through.
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Heard, Understood, Acknowledged
Hmm - possibly not the most apt thread to post this on - but if you are talking about making Auckland/NZ a better place - ya couldn't start in a better place than somehow getting rid of those demagogues of dipshittery, Sean Plunket and his mindless minder Cliff Joiner at Radio Livid, er, Live...Plunket has branded Eleanor Catton a traitorous 'hua'
Plunket this morning criticised Catton for "bagging" New Zealand when she had a taxpayer-funded job at a university.
"I don't see you as an ambassador for our country, I see you as a traitor," Plunket said.
"I'm only having a crack at you now because you're being such an ungrateful hua, Eleanor Catton."Gee, guess he's still upset about losing his taxpayer funded job on 'moaning report'...
and then chief blunt knife in the drawer, Cliff Joiner - chimes in with
RadioLive network director Cliff Joiner confirmed the word used was "hua", a Maori slang word.
Tom Roa of Waikato University's Maori department said "hua" was a shortened version of "upoko kohua", which meant "may your head be boiled and eaten".I think the other origination is more on the money by usage:
Hua – expression: pronounced whoo-a; however not drawn-out. Originates from the Scottish pronunciation of whore, used in conversation in a tongue in cheek manner, such as 'You dirty hua'; 'you little hua'. Maori for the part of a paua you don't eat as it contains excrement.
and speaking of 'faux celebrations" here is an excellent fisking of why Australia Day is a bad idea:
From a non Aboriginal perspective, Australia Day celebrates the arrival of the British.
From the Aboriginal perspective, it celebrates the day they lost their land, their children, their wages, many aspects of their culture, their freedom. In short, it celebrates a day of widespread death and dispossession.
How can anyone possibly expect a race of people to celebrate that?
How would you feel, for example, if, every year on November 11, the Turkish community in Australia held a ‘We Kicked Their Arse Day’, replete with a national holiday and people draping themselves in the Turkish flag.
Ask yourself this simple question: If you really do believe in a ‘day all Australians can celebrate’, do you really believe that January 26 is appropriate? -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
Plunket has branded Eleanor Catton a traitorous ‘hua’
Maybe Plunket meant to tell Catton to 'puss off and go fork yourself'.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Responding to Catton’s comments, Prime Minister John Key said he was disappointed she felt that way”
Disappointed that she nailed his entire being in a single sentence more like:
Catton criticised New Zealand as a country led by "neo-liberal, profit-obsessed, very shallow, very money-hungry politicians who do not care about culture".
Great also to see the likes of Alan Duff but especially Keri Hulme enter the fray. Well missed around these parts you are Islander.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
but if you are talking about making Auckland/NZ a better place – ya couldn’t start in a better place than somehow getting rid of those demagogues of dipshittery,
We could always call in Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney Afterall ,he only cares about what’s good for Auckland.
Heart of the City – a city centre business association registered by Swney in 1994 – has income-tax exemption on the basis that it was created to develop or increase amenities for the Auckland public.
Yeah, right . The sense of entitlement beggars belief. What did Swney ever achieve for the public that warranted tax exemption and $4 mil odd, that didn't already exist?
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