With the Northcote byelection happening in the next few weeks, it was inevitable that attention would focus on Onewa Road on Auckland’s North Shore. Thanks to geography, the western North Shore has a terribly disconnected street network and when combined with the reliance on the State Highway 1 corridor, it results in a huge number of trips funneled into this one road.
Unsurprisingly, at peak times (especially during the morning peak) this is one of the most congested roads in Auckland, not just for those travelling along the road itself, but also for those trying to get onto Onewa Road in the first place.
Despite this congestion, Onewa Road is also one of the most productive corridors in Auckland – in terms of the number of people it shifts at peak times. This is because of the extraordinarily successful T3 lane that extends along it. I don’t have more recent data, but back in 2010 around 83% of people travelling down Onewa Road in the busiest hour were using the T3 lane:
Public transport ridership has grown enormously since 2010, and we know from comments in board reports that Onewa Rd is one of the corridors with the strongest growth, especially since the introduction of double deckers. As such, that share is likely even higher how.
However, there has long been a desire by some locals to turn the T3 lane into a T2 lane. This has most recently been picked up by National Party byelection candidate Dan Bidois:
Contesting a by-election gave him the luxury of avoiding national level policy issues, instead focusing on the hyper local, so if elected, Bidois made clear he had Auckland Council in his sights.
“There isn’t one solution, so I will be holding council to account for the services that they can get improved in the area.”
“For example, they could in fact listen to the residents of this area and trial the T2 lanes down Onewa Rd.”
In 2010 the former North Shore City Council did some detailed analysis of what would happen if the Onewa Road T3 lanes were turned into T2 lanes.
What the analysis showed is that changing the T3 lane into a T2 lane would be incredibly stupid and would make things worse for everyone. Instead of one congested lane you would now have two congested lanes and there would no longer be an incentive to use the bus or carpool, meaning vehicle occupancy would go down and that would lead to even more congestion. Because public transport ridership has grown so much since 2009, when the analysis was undertaken, I would imagine the impact of changing to a T2 lane would be even more dire. We know from ATs plans for the New Network that during the height of the peak, there could be 35 buses an hour heading down Onewa Rd.
So clearly this change makes absolutely no sense and would only make things worse. If anything, with the number of bus services there are it should be moving the other way, to a full bus lane. But this begs the question of “what would help?” Looking at this corridor, and in particular the observation that its congestion is so much worse in the morning peak than the evening peak, I can’t help but wonder whether onw problem is the strange intersection between Onewa Road, Lake Road and Queen Street. It certainly seems like this is a “pinch point” in the system:
Having two intersections so close together is always creates challenges. In sequencing the traffic lights AT need to make sure that queues from previous intersections don’t block right back, making it impossible for people to get onto the main road from the side-streets. And that inevitably means a much less efficient intersection. All those missing pedestrian crossing points right next to a school (in the top left) also make me wonder how bad this area’s safety record is.
Turning this mess into a normal four-way intersection would potentially create a lot of benefit for all road users in the area.
- Buses and cars would be able to get through the intersection much more efficiently
- A safer pedestrian environment could be created
- A major upgrade could create the opportunity for some proper cycling infrastructure
There are two options for how this could be done, either by diverting Queen Street to line up with Lake Road, or vice-versa. Both options would have fairly major property impacts:
I’m not saying that this would be a silver bullet solution (it may just create further bottlenecks down where Onewa Road joins the motorway), but it certainly seems like an improvement much more likely to help than the T3 to T2 change that we know will make traffic much worse for everyone.
If I were running in the by-election I would focus on pushing Auckland Transport to look into this further. Do you use Onewa Rd, is there anything you’ve noticed that could help improve it?
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My main concern is that if Onewa Road is to have a bus lane then all that revenue from bus lane infringements would disappear. No doubt this is being used for public transport enhancements all around the area.
Once there is light rail to the shore, could a good case be made for a spur to Verran’s corner? If there is no room, how much would a light rail cut’n’cover under Onewa road cost? Surely cut and cover isn’t much more expensive than a normal line?
Well, the New Lynn rail trench cost $300 million . . . (though that included the station etc). I can’t seriously think that cut-and-cover would realistically be economical for a LR line except in very short lengths.
I think it would be great to have a spur towards Beach Haven/Birkdale or even along the Glenfield Rd but could light rail cope with the hill climb up from the motorway to the Queen St junction?
Very interesting analysis as there is no doubt the only way to improve the situation is to look at the part of Onewa Rd below Lake Rd. My view is that if you continued the T3 all the way to the motorway you would make things a lot better. The main bottleneck is created by cars having to move to the right lane prior to the overbridge..Considering moving to a T2 is absolutely stupid and would significantly reduce the number of people per hour who would travel down the road.
Maybe a separate light which is always green for T3 on Onewa/Queen motorway-bound and Onewa/Lake west-bound? The cars turning right onto Onewa from Lake or Queen go into the right lane anyway.
The kids could have skateboards and try to scoot right under the cars.
A four-way intersection would be a road-builder’s dream, Matt. And they’d just *widen* it at the same time. I can’t see the justification in spending this much money when it doesn’t solve the root problem: car-dependency.
How about fix the most pressing needs first, with the least resource use possible, in a way that also overtly attempts to meet our priorities: safety, access, ENVIRONMENT and value for money:
1/ Add pedestrian and cyclist amenity so our vulnerable road users are out of danger and walkability is improved. Signalised pedestrian crossings. Good pedestrian phasing.
2/ Convert the T3 lane to a buslane and put on more buses. Put the bus stops in places that suit the passengers, not Goddess Flo’.
Over 27,000 cars using this strip. Improving it for the car isn’t the solution. Reducing that number substantially while increasing safety and access is the solution.
How much more cycling and pedestrian amenity do you want? There is already a shared path on Onewa (not ideal granted but better than most) and the Northcote safe cycling route under construction.
I walk the full length of Onewa most days and I find it (apart from obviously a very built environment) perfectly adequate. Crossings prioritise pedestrians over cars except for Lake /Onewa.
The main improvement that needs to be made IMO is enforcement. The reason anecdotally the evening rush is better is because there is no enforcement. Effectively there is no T3. Most days there are still cars parked in it!
Similarly in the mornings there are an astounding number of single occupant cars that use the T3 and then push into the main queue as they approach the enforcement camera.
they need more cameras. Could they use the ones on the traffic lights?
Agree changing it back to a T2 is nonsensical. I’m just glad AT finally found the balls to extend the operating hours.
Also agree making it a T3 all the way to Sylvan makes sense
What really needs to be looked at is school hours. Not just for Onewa (3 schools on it) but across Auckland. Traffic is amazingly improved during school holidays
At peak the T3 lane already backlogs with traffic. You get one bus stopping to allow passengers on, three more backup + cars. It’d be worth checking what the capacity of the T3 lane is.
Queen St & Lake roads are problems, because so much traffic is funnelled into here. Once you get past Queen St it’s usually a very quick drive down to the bridge. And so many peak time cheats at the T3 lane…
I catch the ferry from Birkenhead each day. The service is under-utilised. Can we get more buses that go to ferry terminals? The other problems with the service are cost (ferry not included in the zone structure for hop) and infrequency (one boat every half hour at peak, weekends it can be 2.5 hours).
Once sky path is built we’ll have less passengers on the boat as those that bring their bikes would be able to bike the whole way. When sky path is built I’ll be buying a bike to ride rather than boat.
I’m not sure if the city is the final destination for those driving across the bridge, so it might be a matter of improving outbound bus and rail services from the city in the morning too.
Agreed the issue of ferry is:
-too expensive compare to match bus
-low frequency
-poor cycleway connections (catchments)
-unable to park and ride (catchments)
Heidi the car hater 🙁 If you look at the photo that Matt used for this article, you will not see one cyclist. That is despite a lot of money being spent on footpath improvements, that allowed a cycle path.
We’re not going to get a functioning network – cycling, driving, or PT – if we pussyfoot around avoiding the main issue, tweaking here and there while our carbon emissions and road toll goes up.
You could fix a large portion of the road toll by makin zero tolerance the law. Cycling will never be big in Auckland, look at the cities where cycling is huge, Hamburg, Bremen, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Brussels, they all have one thing in common, they are dead flat, which Auckland is not.
Citation, please, Rob. Have you not seen the increasing cycling numbers for Auckland, hills or not? Wanting to be part of the solution not the problem is encouraging many – better to get your exercise going up hills than in a gym. Electric bikes are changing it for some people; Perhaps you should look up AT’s business case for cycling. The research is not lacking.
If that photo is of the ‘footpath improvements’ I’d be demanding a refund on that large sum of money, they don’t look great for cycling at all.
With cars parked in the transit lane, it’s not a peak hour picture is it? I can’t see any buses in the picture either. Are you going to deny they exist?
There’ll be plenty of bikes going down there when the Skypath opens. The cycle improvements (a few dropped kerbs and a lot of signs) were only added to the south side and a far from adequate in terms of encouraging cycling. The smart thing to do is to get on with proper cycling improvements before Skypath opens, the school kids will benefit from them right now, and the commuter and tourist use will be along shortly.
ETA – OK, one bus. I couldn’t see it at first because the headlights were dazzling me.
I’ve always thought the rat runners from Woodside Ave cause the biggest delay heading down Onewa towards the motorway. After Woodside it flows ok, even with cars merging from the T3 lane.
That could be tested with tactical urbanism. Block Woodside Ave where it curves through the bush. The rat-runners will have to use Lake Rd. Anyone using Woodside Ave still is not a rat-runner, unless they also double back through Kawana St? In which case, make that a no-left turn into Woodside Ave.
That’s not the only rat run. I get the ferry at Birkenhead, and riding down Hinemoa St. I’d say that approximately 75% of car traffic on that road turns into Maritime Terrace to try and cut into the Onewa Rd queue at Queen St. Bear in mind that I’m down there at a time when the half-hourly ferry service is due. Between ferries it’s likely to be a much higher percentage of rat runners going through Little Shoal Bay.
Blocking the road in the middle of the reserve there would be an interesting test. Northcote traffic can have access to the car park by the tennis court, Birkenhead side can have access to the beach car park, but no through way between them, even if it’s only for peak hours.
In the process, this would make cycling to the ferry much safer along Maritime Terrace. And Hinemoa St.
I catch the ferry at Birkenhead too. I’ve done the little shoal run before when I’ve needed to drive… The reserve is predicted to be underwater in 20 years anyway, so problem solved? I heard AT plan to build a bridge when it does happen due to the need for a backup route…
The Little Shoal route is faster… or feels faster, at least.
While I think such a major intersection upgrade is a noble idea, I think there are smaller steps that could be taken in order to improve the situation.
More efficient routing planning by Birkenhead Transport would make busing an even more popular choice than it currently is.
The inefficiencies on the routes (973,974,955,958) feeding into Onewa Road are shocking. The majority of the buses from Beach Haven /Birkdale still pass through Highbury, despite very few passengers getting on/off and the detour through Highbury adding at least 5 minutes to each journey. More express services carrying passengers from those areas straight down the Highbury Bypass, onto Onewa Rd and into the city would make those services a much more attractive option than they currently are. Similarly on the return journey in the evening, the majority of 972/973/974/975 all crawl though Highbury for little purpose. Keep in mind there are major covered bus stops at either end of the bypass, meaning you are never more than a 3-4 minute walk from the Highbury shopping area to a bus route using the bypass.
Another way to increase bus patronage through the Onewa catchment area is for AT to take a serious look at the Birkenhead transport timetables. They have built in so much leeway to ensure they are not penalised for late services that what should be a 25 minute evening commute to Beach Haven, leaving the city at 6.20pm , can in fact take closer to 50 minutes. Buses idle for up to 10 minutes at the above mentioned Highbury Shops and then again at Verrans Corner. Bear in mind that the T3 hours on Onewa have now extended to 7pm so that now buses traveling on Onewa are moving much faster. However in order to keep to their bloated scheduled times, BT drivers are sitting at the end of Onewa Rd, eating up any gains that the extended T3 hours have given them: it is truly ridiculous.
The service by BT on these major routes (973,974,955,958) is being underpinned not by efficiency but by convenience, and not then convenience of passengers.
If the services using Onewa were faster, if there was less padding in the BT timetable, more commuters would choose to travel by bus and the problems on Onewa would be improved immensely.
For high frequency routes, penalty for late bus should be removed, replace by minimum frequency between buses.
That encourages operators to run more efficient.
+1, bus to birkdale and beach heaven (971,973,974) during peak should just go straight along onewa road. This save about 10-15 minutes and making the bus much more ‘rapid’ and attractive.
+1 Paul
I’ve been taking these services (mainly 973/974) for over 20 years, and the extra padding that gets built into the routes means that I’m often spending an extra 15 minutes I don’t need getting home in the evening. You have to be quite knowledgeable about which buses from the city to avoid (eg, don’t take the x bus, as it has heaps of extra time built into the timetable; take the one that leaves the city 10 minutes later and it will pass it at Verrans and sail on by while the other one is still waiting). This doesn’t make for an intuitive system… and makes it very frustrating for the casual/current-non user, which is who they should be/are trying to attract. Will this improve with the new Frequent Network? I doubt it, because they seem to be covering themselves from fines by making the route times ever-longer.
Yes, such huge padding in timetable sounds very annoying. I wonder if this can be changed from within AT or changes to the PTOM contracts without law changes to the PTOM itself, and how long would that take? Without looking into myself, it might be quite hard to change this quickly (where start time is the key thing).
Padding has increased, presumably to improve on-time reliability, and frequency is so much better than it was 20 years ago, so that its something!
If changing to a T2 was the solution, then Onewa Rd wouldn’t back up at about 6:15, before the transit lane kicks in, but it does. The reason is the disorganised merging at the end as everyone tries to get in the right lane to head south. On the few occasions I have to take the car into work, I make sure I’m down there before 6AM now.
Here are some fixes I’d like to see considered:
1. Full shared paths down both sides, with pedestrian/cycling priority on raised tables across the ends of all side roads that aren’t light controlled. There’s a college and 2 primary schools along that road, and minimising school drop-offs will be an essential part of traffic reduction.
2. Permanent bus lanes in each direction, with a full-time clearway. AT are reluctant to make the off-peak hours a clearway because it might induce traffic, but that won’t be a concern if the outer lanes are bus lanes at all times. This will also remove the hopeless merge chaos at the end of the road.
3. No access from or into Sylvan Ave during peak times. If the lights at the end of Onewa Rd only had to change for emergency vehicles turning right out of the slip lane from the Police headquarters, then this last bit of the road will flow much better. There is only pedestrian access on the north side here, and it is seperated from the road and at a lower level over the shared path bridge into Onopoto Domain.
4. To make Lake Rd. flow better (it will be taking all the actual residents from the Exmouth Rd/Sylvan Ave. area as well as all those that currently use that as a rat run, the Lake Rd. / Queen St. alignment should be looked at.
A mini flyover at the bottom of the hill to join onto the existing city bound onramp for buses only shouldn’t be too hard or expensive. Would mean they would have a free run avoiding that intersection.
“AT are reluctant to make the off-peak hours a clearway because it might induce traffic”
As would no stopping (yellow dashed) lines, yet AT seems to sprinkle those about without such “concerns”. Not just along here but roads all over the place.
That’s clearly a load of bollocks and is simply being used a cover story for the old “we don’t want the residents and local dairy owners backlash if we take ‘their’ on street parking away”.
Never heard AT mention induced traffic before, their normal position is that it doesn’t exist.
So how can you deny induced traffic is real then start claiming you can’t do stuff because it might “induce traffic”.
Good example of the outrageous doublethink the Operations Dept AT is clearly good at.
Aligning Queen St and Lake Rd would only make sense if there was a lot of traffic solely between the 2 roads but from the comments it seems the Queen St traffic mostly turns onto Onewa to the Bridge and same for Lake Rd
Not usre if I can post the image here, or just a link but let’s give it a go. Here is AT’s response to the local board asking for clearways:
https://scontent.fakl4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/29178939_1802632813093712_1255318596489986841_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=5cfe40502617c4fe4cf805b4ff27b72c&oe=5B92290A
I use this road to get to work from Birkenhead into the city. Generally, I find once passed lake road things move rather quickly and people switching lanes doesn’t seem to be a big issue as the non-T3 lane allows a significant amount of cars onto the motorway which is free-flowing too.
However, there are a lot of pinch points further up including the ones already mentioned and at the intersection at Highbury. The fact is that there are too many cars and while re-algining Queen Street and Lake Rd onto Onewa would be better than it is now I am unsure if that would solve the issue. In fact there are so many of these mis-aligned streets around here. Unfortunately, we didn’t build grid streets.
I think the only long term solution is for LR up Onewa and then along Birkenhead Rd to Glenfiled Mall. Along this route would be great to increase density. If this was done then buses from Beach Haven and Birkenhead could terminate at a new Higbury interchange with LR.
I use Onewa Road regularly both as a bus passenger, driving a car, and occasionally on my bike. I agree with Paul and Andy White’s comments above. To my mind, the only real way to improve the situation that does not cost ridiculous amounts of money is to make the alternatives to driving on Onewa Road at peak times much better. I would also suggest improvements to Birkenhead/Northcote Point ferry services — maybe an extra trip or two at peak times (current frequency is only once per 30 minutes) and safe cycling infrastructure on Hinemoa Street to make it more attractive to bike to the Birkenhead ferry terminal. SkyPath will obviously help too — it needs to have good connections up into Birkenhead/Glenfield (ie not just SeaPath). And I think the bus options for people going north could be better, eg efficient connecting buses to the Northern Busway.
I agree entirely with your comments re: Skypath access. Seapath is great for the rest of the Shore, but pretty hopeless for those coming from the west. That’s another reason why shared paths on Onewa need to provided, and be of a suitable quality. The current start/stop, signpost-infested shared path on the south side is really not up to scratch, and doesn’t go all the way to Queen St.
And of course, once on Queen St. the worse-than-nothing, NIMBY induced ‘safe cycle route’ needs to be fixed so that we’re not all invited to ride right into the door zone.
I agree, although I’m not a huge fan of shared paths in general — pedestrians seem confused by them and drivers coming out of driveways don’t seem to realise that people on bikes could be coming. I haven’t measured it properly but it seems like there’s plenty of width on both sides of Onewa Road for proper separated cycle lanes if the footpaths were shrunk a bit, at least from Highbury down to Lake Road.
I agree about cycle lanes being better than shared paths. But we need to improve the walkability with trees and green infrastructure, not make it worse with narrow footpaths.
The reason it’s important to address the root cause and not make cyclists, buses and pedestrians fight for the crumbs left after the cars get the bulk of the space, is that this situation is repeated all over the city.
Your solutions involving better amenity for alternatives to driving are good – they just need to be scaled up.
I’ve been walking this week with a buggy and 2 dogs, so completely agree. Footpaths need to be minimum 1.8m, more ideally 2.1m wide, particularly if they’re hard up against property fencing. Otherwise it’s basically single-file. In my view the cycle path (separated) can be a bit narrower than the pedestrian, just because cycles really don’t have the extra width that many pedestrians + entourage have (buggies/wheelchairs/dogs 🙂
We’re awaiting AT’s new Transport Design Manual… A draft I have shows that even if this street is called a “single use arterial” which means the least importance is given to pedestrians, cyclists, local movements and local placemaking, the footpaths should be “buffered from moving traffic by additional footpath width, planting strip / or on-street parking
• Wider footpaths and crossings near PT stops or key attractors
• Formal crossings needed at intersections for safety, formal mid-block if high demand/risk to a specific attractor or over 800m between intersections
• Informal crossings mid-block, not exceeding 400m between
crossings. Support with refuge islands”
And again, even for a “single use arterial”, cycle lanes should have physical buffers if the traffic flow exceeds 2000 vpd. It is in fact 27,000. So I don’t think we can justify making the cycle lanes narrow either.
It begs the question of what is AT going to propose at this location?
+1 about the cycle lanes to ferry from west and north and also increase frequency.
Your proposed changes to the junctions could be improved. If Lake Road was only diverted through BP petrol station and the house behind it, and Queen Street was diverted through the houses marked 208 and 216 on the plan then you could have a new single junction with Onewa Road with minimal loss of properties.
As someone who uses onewa road every morning, here is my 2 cents.
More enforcement to clear the parking cars near highbury methodist church. Those cars blocks the intersection even during clearway hours.
The traffic light phasing should give less priority to lake road and queen st, especially after 845am. At 9am onewa road is still deadlocked with hundreds of cars on the queue moving at 0kmh, but lake road only have a few cars in queue, yet the traffic give them high priority to take all remaining road capacity.
Consider block off queen st turning right and allow bruce st to turn right instead. This buy space between lake road.
In general, too much traffic light priority is given to the joining branches (lake road, queen st), that make the trunk (onewa road) stop flowing and create long queue deadlocks all the way to chatswood and glenfield.
So one traffic sewer unimpeded by joining sewers is better? It hardly gets to the root of the problem.
The point is fairness, at 9pm, there is an half hour queue from Highbury to motorway, while somebody from lake road can access the motorway free flow in 2 minutes.
Imagine you are in a slow moving queue, and people ahead just keep pushing in and makes you hardly move.
Yip. Agree.
“Fairer” traffic phasing won’t do anything to improve congestion and I don’t see the point of focusing on it. But If I was to vote, I would say those living in nearby streets should get priority over those who are passing through on their way to and from distant points. So side streets go first and for longer.
Demarcating the T3 lane at Queen St so T3 traffic can continually drive down without traffic light impediment and then having a decent merging section toward the bridge at the bottom of Onewa for traffic going city or Takapuna bound would be a huge help.
The pedestrian at Queen would be the only hold up otherwise.
A pedestrian tunnel at Northcote Primary would be highly beneficial and a lot safer too and again improve flows.
I disagree with some that suggest Birkenhead Transport is to blame for poor services, the fat in the timetable simply predicts the unpredictable state of traffic flows but I do agree, far more services should go via the Highbury bypass.
And as for the National Party candidate’s pointless shit stirring coupled with an embarrassing lack of knowledge of Onewa Rds issues is par for the National Party course. His predecessor Jonathan “leaky hospital ” Coleman did less than nothing toward the problems here, and all that does is make Bidois look even less credible. In fact if National had the chance, what he is saying would do nothing more than worsen the problem!
It amazes me that someone standing for national political office thinks there is mileage in raising a local issue over which he won’t have any authority if he is elected. It also amazes me that somehow it works, that he can get noticed by bleating about something irrelevant to his future position.
I wonder if we’ll end up needing T1 lanes after self driving cars eventuate?
Why not just link the traffic lights at Lake and Queen into a virtual intersection as a start.
Like how the traffic lights in Newmarket with Broadway are when going North, or how Remuera Road, Victoria Avenue and Clonbern Roads work in Remuera..
So what if you have a small patch of road not covered with cars between these two roads.
It doesn’t require any bulldozing of anything and might help reduce the madness..
But thats just treading water, you definitely need to need a real circuit breaker there.
But one question why is the road over the motorway overbridge/onramp on the left still a dedicated bus lane?
Surely if Onewa Road is ok for T3, why not leave the left lane on the overbridge as T3 all the way over the bridge and don’t convert the left lane at all into a Bus Lane as it then merges into the Northern bus way (or rather northern bus way merges in that left lane) which then merges into motorway with the regular lane from Onewa road? Seriously whats the harm in that idea?
That way cars with 3 or more occupants can go down Onewa road, directly onto the Bus lane [no merging needed], then merge over to the right lane once over that bridge. There is no “motorway on ramp” lights there to impede traffic right, so its pretty much a free for all once on that overbridge anyway and its only the artificial delineation between the onramp & overbridge area being a “NZTA” controlled bus lane and the AT controlled T3 lane on Onewa road that stops it.
Yes some buses might be held up, by this change – but then they’re likely all held up now with queue of T3 cars blocking their on ramp access as they attempt the right lane merge to use the onramp overbridge.
The only issue is to ensure that the T3 cars don’t then impede the northern bus lane merge just south of the Onewa road onramp, but it won’t be the T3 cars doing that but rather the larger stream of SOVs, T2’s and such that are in the “regular” lane which are merging on just ahead of it that are causing the issues for these buses.
Seems to me to worth a trial anyway, then the case for a T2 simply disappears, as if the T3 or the bus is genuinely quicker than the regular lane, then people will adapt pretty quickly.
And to ensure proper enforcement, NZTA can station a permanent camera or two on the overbridge at each end to catch all those cheats using the left hand lane when they’re not got 3 people inside.
Simple easy and effective.
The north shore needs to be in the second round of light rail, clearly buses have had an effect, but light rail will surely have much more effect. With Onewa already allowing for a T3, spacewise it should not be a problem to add a tram, effectively occupying the space currently providing the T3 lanes. North shore residents appear to be particularly car reliant, and given that there are zero rail options, I can almost understand, almost. It does bemuse me how the all of the city onramps are jammed by north shore traffic in the evening peak hour however. Could you not just keep your cars on your side and enjoy the trains we have south side?
Lots of good ideas here, definitely changing to a T2 is a bad idea. If it backs up before the operation hours of the lanes then that says it all.
There are a number of valid suggestions here. But Onewa Road does not exist in isolation. Its catchment area is not fixed, rather it is variable. So if congestion on Onewa Road is reduced, more traffic from Glenfield, Bayview, Unsworth Heights, and even further afield, will choose to travel down Glenfield Road to Onewa Road, rather than joining the motorway at on-ramps further north. So any decrease in travel time down Onewa Road will just encourage more traffic, and we are back to the status quo. In saying this, I would like to see all parking banned on Onewa Road, both directions, 24/7. Why should I and all other citizens have to provide private parking for those residents on Onewa Road? Onewa, and other Roads, should be thoroughfares, not publicly provided private parking lots.
There’s a balance required between Place and Movement. Why should the locals have a traffic sewer of a main road because people further out aren’t taking the bus? would be an equally valid question.
If you have a look at the Roads and Streets Framework, you’ll find that with the 27000 vpd this road carries, it needs to be much (much) wider. It also needs much more green infrastructure and cyclelanes. That width is not available, and making it available would be incredibly destructive of both resource and place.
In the width that is available, even with the lowest ranking for “place”, the traffic volume needs to be severely reduced.
Competition between local parking and through-traffic is missing the point. Higher people movement and higher safety for vulnerable road users is what is required, and removing a bit of parking is not going to achieve that.
Sounds like someone with a theoretical view of the world, without any worldly sensibilities. I don’t know where you live, or where you commute and/or travel. But do you ever use SH1 north or south of Auckland, or anywhere else for that matter. If so, are the locals in those areas entitled to say that you are contributing to the traffic sewer in their area? So far as I am aware citizens in this country are free to come and go where-ever and whenever they choose, with some restrictions of course. And how do you propose to force people from further out onto a bus? Some government edict perhaps, a la Stalin, Jong-un, or similar? If I wanted to get from my house in Bayview to my work at the Airport by 07:00 using public transport I would have to leave the night before. And to get home after my 12 hour shift I wouldn’t arrive home until the next day. Which means that I would be limited to working every second day. Regarding parking, I cannot see how you can justify your comment that removing a bit of parking will not achieve higher people movement and higher safety. Please explain.
Anyone interested in the Northcote by-election “debate” last week on “The Nation”, here it is:
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/05/debate-northcote-by-election-candidates.html
Making Onewa a clear way at all times, no unnecessary parking. There are plenty of side roads. Not extending the T3 to 10am as the traffic used to flow after 9, only being impacted by lazy parking.