PRIVATE Transport

[Svartmetall]

Originally Posted by SYDNEY

1277 people killed in South Africa since 01 December ... I can't find a figure for the same period in NZ - anybody know ?

Nope, only 17 over this period. Everyone knows that SA has nutty nutty road tolls! Taryn often tells me about the "Vaalies" who come down to the Eastern Cape and wrap themselves around any metal implement that gets in their way during the holiday period.

I don't think it's likely for people to encounter donkey carts and people with 40+ stuffed in a minicab in NZ. "Two minicabs collided yesterday, 80 casualties".

[SYDNEY]

Originally Posted by Svartmetall

Nope, only 17 over this period. Everyone knows that SA has nutty nutty road tolls! Taryn often tells me about the "Vaalies" who come down to the Eastern Cape and wrap themselves around any metal implement that gets in their way during the holiday period.

I don't think it's likely for people to encounter donkey carts and people with 40+ stuffed in a minicab in NZ. "Two minicabs collided yesterday, 80 casualties".

Thanks Smarty it is beyond nutty, more like CHAOS !

[Mr_kiwi_fruit]

wrong place......

[jarbury]

Onewa Rd Interchange upgrade is making some progress at the moment. I think the spans for the two bridges over the motorway can't be too far away. I'll try to take some photos at some stage soon.

Isn't this meant to be finished by May?

[aucklandman]

Yea its looking good, late 2008 is the completion target.

[jarbury]

Are they going to widen Onewa Rd between the corner with Queen Street and the limit of roadworks as they are now do you know? It just seems like the very bottom of Onewa has been widened (or in the process), they're now widening the bridge over the creek, but there's still a gap between the lowest bus stop and where the roadworks seem to stop that will struggle to fit the necessary 4 lanes...

[Mr_kiwi_fruit]

Queen St 30km/h
5:00AM Monday February 04, 2008
By Bernard Orsman

Queen St could take another step forward for pedestrians with a proposal to lower the speed limit from 50km/h to 30km/h.

The $43.5 million upgrade of the Golden Mile has resulted in wider footpaths, new trees, new pedestrian crossings and a pedestrian countdown timer.

Now the Auckland City Council is looking at lowering the speed limit to 30km/h between Mayoral Drive and Customs St for "lower priority" through traffic.

The idea is for motor vehicles to more closely match the needs of pedestrians.

A traffic survey in 2003 and 2004, before the council started upgrading Queen St, showed the average speed was 31km/h. Just 2 per cent of vehicles exceeded the 50km/h speed limit, with speeds of 70km/h recorded.

Send Herald your views.....

[jarbury]

Not really sure what the point is, if the average speed is 31 kph at the moment. I guess it's to take people's minds off the idea of introducing 24 hour bus lanes?

[jarbury]

Mt Roskill Motorway Extension Update:

I work in the middle of this extension just about, so I figured I should take some photos. From a moving car I must say!



Maioro Street. Transit are widening this arterial route to four lanes so it will be the main link between the motorway and the west (via Tiverton and Wolverton Streets, which are also being upgraded).



A couple more of Maioro Street. Near the corner with Richardson Road.



Hillsborough Road, near the interchange with the existing SH20. This will be a standard diamond interchange with the motorway going underneath Hillsborough Road. Lots of digging here over the past couple of years. The unique roundabout has been removed recently.





A couple more in the same area.





Two photos at the very start of SH20. Note that we're going down the future onramp from Hillsborough Rd to the motorway. The other side of the motorway is also driving on the future offramp. In the middle they're digging down big time for the future motorway alignment.

[MonsieurAquilone]

Great photos!! Great insight!

[jarbury]

Any updates to progress on PENLINK? Seems like it's been stalled forever!

[Kane007]

I think the waterview interchange may be along the lines of the new Manukau City interchange. From Ben's Auckland Motorways site...



and



Very similar except then flows below ground.

Hopefully they'll also have enough room for a busway/3rd lane - it'll be a real bitch to add extra lanes.

[MonsieurAquilone]

[MonsieurAquilone]

[Svartmetall]

You mean you're not going to knock off one months repayment?! What a rip off! I'm going to that annoying Brummie woman who plagues the infomercials, her company knocks one payment off!

Perhaps their tunnel will also include luminous crushed spheres...

[Dion]

yeah her tunnel would definitely have a natural glow....


anyway bad jokes aside, I think PPP is the way to go though the Sydney example of the Cross City tunnel is a cause for concern. Does anyone know how the other toll tunnels are doing over there? Such as Lane Cove?

[Dion]

I happened across this old gem of a leaflet and just had to share

http://www.petroltax.org.nz/PDF/AucklandMotorways.PDF


Comments:

Glad the Avondale-Henderson link through Kelston is firmly off the agenda...no need for it anyway since it would just be an unnecessary duplication of the North-Western.

Also glad that a motorway parallel to Dominion Road was never built...though am somewhat saddened to note that Dominion Road was originally planned to link directly with Queen Street (I said in the national Road thread some weeks ago that it would have been cool if Queen Street was directly connected to Dominion Road). Might have been also good to have had the interchange where Ian McKinnon Drive suddenly stands built too (would definitely reduce the number of cars using Gillies Ave to get onto the Motorway), but then again if built the CMJ would peobably be even more catastrophic than it is now.


Other notes:
It appears that the Northern Motorway was originally planned to end at Hatfields Beach so I am glad that in the thirty years hence they have decided to bypass Hatfields Beach and Waiwera, thus having the eco viaducts and Tunnels built (and avoiding the windy strecth of state highway 1 around waiwera).

No mention of the Upper Harbour Motorway.

[jarbury]

Fascinating article! Wow the CMJ would have been totally nuts with that South-Western Motorway linking into it as well!

[Svartmetall]

That leaflet scares the living daylights out of me. It just goes to show how wrong they were about roads and how rhetoric infused the old planning boards for road infrastructure were.

In the quiet mid-winter sun motorway lanes streak northward, almost empty before the city rush hour.

[jarbury]

I thought it was kind of cute actually! I think it's from the early 70s?

Good thing that Dominion Rd motorway didn't end up going through of course, and it doesn't say anything about public transport. But yeah, CMJ would have been really amazing!