Tag: Warkworth

NZTA to Begin Work On the Hill Street, Warkworth Intersection

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Construction to begin this Summer

 

Of all times NZTA were to pick it had to be in the Summer peak season too…

From NZTA

Summer start for Warkworth’s Hill Street improvements

6 Aug 2014 02:36pm | NZ Transport Agency: Auckland and Northland

People in the Rodney area will have their opportunity later this month to find out more about improvements to the State Highway 1/Hill Street intersection in Warkworth before the NZ Transport Agency starts construction this summer. The Transport Agency’s open day will be held on Saturday 16 August from 10am to 2pm in the Old Masonic Hall in Baxter Street, Warkworth.

Highway Manager, Brett Gliddon, says the open day is a chance for the Transport Agency to explain in more detail its interim improvements for the intersection.

“We are committed to delivering these improvements this summer, but accept that these are not the final solution for Hill Street. As part of the longer term plans for Hill Street, we will continue to investigate the traffic impacts of the new Pūhoi to Warkworth motorway, the Western Collector and potential projects such as the Matakana Link,” Mr Gliddon says.

The interim improvements at the intersection include:

  • widening the northbound approach on SH1, and increasing the capacity of the right turn lane into Matakana Road by extending it back to the intersection with Shoesmith Street.
  • widening the corresponding southbound approach which will add some capacity for traffic turning left into Matakana Road.
  • the southbound right turn lane from SH1 into Hill Street will be removed. This will improve traffic flow by giving more green light time to other traffic movements. It also provides additional space, easing the impact of construction. (alternative routes to access Hill Street are available via Hudson Road and Falls Road or Hudson and Albert Road)
  • walkers and cyclists will benefit from a new wider shared path on the western side of SH1
  • Improving the connection between Sandspit Road and Elizabeth Street.

Mr Gliddon says construction avoids the busiest holiday weekends of the year such as Labour Weekend and Christmas/New Year to minimise driver disruption. The improvements are expected to be finished before Easter 2015.

“We want to deliver these improvements as soon as possible with a minimum of disruption to drivers. The works will take place sequentially to keep traffic moving and minimise any inconvenience.”

Information about the project is also available online at www.nzta.govt.nz/warkworth

—ends—

Source: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/about/media/releases/3547/news.html

 

Okay so NZTA will avoid those Summer peaks with the Hill Street intersection interim improvements.

 

Holiday Highway in the Spotlight

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Hearings Begin on Warkworth Section of Holiday Highway

 

The Herald has noted that the Board of Enquiry gets under way today for the Puhoi-Warkworth section of the Puhoi-Welsford Roads of National Significance Program otherwise known as the Holiday Highway.

From the NZ Herald:

Holiday highway plan in spotlight

By Mathew Dearnaley 4:15 AM Monday Apr 7, 2014

Fast-tracking of $760m extension to be considered over 14 days. 

Plans for one of the country’s most expensive transport projects – a $760 million extension of Auckland’s motorway network to Warkworth – go under the microscope today.

A board of inquiry appointed for fast-tracking planning consideration of the 18.5km extension as the first half of a Road of National Significance will preside over 14 days of hearings.

The Government is promoting the extension over 12 viaducts and bridges from the Johnstones Hill traffic tunnels south of Puhoi to a new roundabout north of Warkworth, as a vital freight and tourism link with Northland.

Even so, many of the 14,000 vehicles a day expected to use the new road by 2026 will double back to Warkworth’s often bottlenecked Hill St turnoff to eastern beaches.

That keeps critics such as Auckland Council infrastructure chairman Mike Lee calling it “the holiday highway” to the intense annoyance of Northland leaders and former Rodney mayor Penny Webster.

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There will only be one traffic interchange between Orewa and Warkworth, to be confined to just south-facing ramps at Puhoi, after residents protested against an earlier plan which would have denied them access.

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So you will need to double back and still get held up at the notorious Hill Road intersection at Warkworth in order to get to the eastern beaches. That in itself is rather self-defeating.

 

In any case the Holiday Highway even if fully completed as the gold-plated 4-lane motorway would still fall well short of where it would need to be if it were to serve the population and industrial centres of Northland. You would need to take the motorway all the way to Whangarei itself to get the “benefits” you would be sort after – much like the 4-lane expressway Auckland to Hamilton and Cambridge.

Ironically there has been two more cheaper but more beneficial transport schemes to connect Auckland up to Northland than the Holiday Highway. One is Operation Lifesaver devised by Transport Blog, the other is to fully upgrade the North Auckland (rail) Line from Swanson to Whangarei with a branch line to Marsden Point (home of a deep water port and our oil refinery) to allow our more powerful DL’s to haul longer trains from the area south (like logs).

You can read about Operation Lifesaver as an alternative to the Holiday Highway HERE.

 

Operation Lifesaver I believe follows the same premise as the upgrades to State Highway 2 that have happened and are going to continue to happen again soon. You can read what NZTA has done and what it will be up to with State Highway 2 here: Safety Improvements for State Highway 2. Once the upgrades are complete that section of State Highway 2 (which carries more regular, holiday and freight traffic than the Holiday Highway ever would) will allow that traffic to travel efficiently and safely to their destinations. So if these kind of simple upgrades to a much busier State Highway 2 are effective why does State Highway 1 going north need to be a 4-lane Motorway that does not really go the distance it would need to? And these upgrades to State Highway 2 are very similar to what Operation Lifesaver proposes.

 

Lets hope this Board of Inquiry puts the Holiday Highway under the same intense microscope as it did to a Wellington Highway project last month. And cross fingers the Board of Inquiry might start shifting us away from this motorway to something more viable that will not break the bank…

Here’s hoping