Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Roading in NZ: all yak all the time
From north of Wellington comes this story. Transit regional manager Graham Taylor responds by noting that his agency is on top of the situation:
The same story notes that the bridge where the accident occurred is "50 years old, for God's sake." The bridge on the NW motorway that you cross over just after the Lincoln Rd exit (when heading NW) says "1962". It is two lanes wide in either direction. I note that there is a shitload of development occurring in and around Massey, plus infill housing, all of which means more GST, more rates, and .... more cars (breathtaking stuff I know). Net changes to the NW motorway? Nil.
How about the Upper Harbour Highway, you ask? Not everyone who lives in the North-West commutes to the city!
Well, that's a fucking joke too. Let's set out in an Easterly direction. First you're required to crawl along the wide (but only one-lane each way) Hobsonville Rd at 50kph. Then you hit the construction at the Greenhithe Bridge, complete with a roundabout (which, when travelling in the other direciton, you can't see when on account of it being down a hill, and round a corner). Then if you head left towards most of the North Shore, and SH 1 (i.e., not down to Takapuna) you hit a roundabout on to which traffic from Albany flows constantly, with the right of way, and everyone else has to yield. And then you finally get round, only to encounter ... more construction on Constellation Dr. One wonders why:
(a) the road planning morons don't think to start and finish one section of road (say, Constellation Dr) before moving on to fuck up another nearby area (say, Greenhithe Bridge).
(b) why Constellation Dr wasn't finished before the bus station/park-n-ride opened.
Finally, let's hope big Jake Oram can go three for three tonight and earn a spot as Legend as Late. NZ to bat first and score over 300!!
"People are calling for more and more wire ropes - this is leading-edge stuff installing wire-rope barriers in the middle of two-lane road with these volumes of traffic (22,000 vehicles a day), but we are looking at extending the barrier from Centennial Highway to McKays crossing."Leading-edge stuff indeed. Fucking moron - it's putting a wire rope down the middle of a highway to reduce head-on crashes (y'know, the ones that often claim peoples' lives). We're not talking the Cistene Chapel here.
The same story notes that the bridge where the accident occurred is "50 years old, for God's sake." The bridge on the NW motorway that you cross over just after the Lincoln Rd exit (when heading NW) says "1962". It is two lanes wide in either direction. I note that there is a shitload of development occurring in and around Massey, plus infill housing, all of which means more GST, more rates, and .... more cars (breathtaking stuff I know). Net changes to the NW motorway? Nil.
How about the Upper Harbour Highway, you ask? Not everyone who lives in the North-West commutes to the city!
Well, that's a fucking joke too. Let's set out in an Easterly direction. First you're required to crawl along the wide (but only one-lane each way) Hobsonville Rd at 50kph. Then you hit the construction at the Greenhithe Bridge, complete with a roundabout (which, when travelling in the other direciton, you can't see when on account of it being down a hill, and round a corner). Then if you head left towards most of the North Shore, and SH 1 (i.e., not down to Takapuna) you hit a roundabout on to which traffic from Albany flows constantly, with the right of way, and everyone else has to yield. And then you finally get round, only to encounter ... more construction on Constellation Dr. One wonders why:
(a) the road planning morons don't think to start and finish one section of road (say, Constellation Dr) before moving on to fuck up another nearby area (say, Greenhithe Bridge).
(b) why Constellation Dr wasn't finished before the bus station/park-n-ride opened.
Finally, let's hope big Jake Oram can go three for three tonight and earn a spot as Legend as Late. NZ to bat first and score over 300!!
Labels: auckland, cricket, motorways
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