Plans to channel heavy vehicles towards the expressway and lighten the port traffic along Napier's Marine Parade may mean another area will have to bear the load.
Taking the strain off the parade could put more pressure on the rapidly rising tourist destination of Ahuriri, a local businessman claims.
Truckjourneys along Marine Parade have been estimated to be upwards of 700 a day, and it is hoped a lot will take an alternative route along the expressway if any roading upgrade occurs. This puts added pressure on to SH50 where it passes through the seaside suburb, through Bridge St and the Ahuriri bypass to the port.
In the two years Mark Howson has owned the busy Portside Inn Backpacker Lodge in Bridge St he has noticed more traffic as development has increased and the port has got busier.
Although there was an increase in traffic noise, an even bigger concern was how pedestrians got safely across the road, which at times was "scary to watch", he said. With several child-care businesses and a primary school in the area, plus the Princess Alexandra Retirement Village on the inland side of the road, a lot of these people were children and the elderly.
The Ahuriri Business Association has been lobbying the Napier City Council for three years to get a safe crossing on the road. Association president Alison McKimm said the area, where SH50 separated Ahuriri into three parts, was a particularly difficult part of the road. The situation was further complicated by having a railway line running through the middle, which meant a traffic island, called "the peanut" because of its irregular shape, had to be installed instead of a traffic roundabout.
"It's not an easy thing to solve, but we need a safer and more visible crossing in the middle of the peanut, where the road narrows and the trucks have slowed down," she said.
Napier City Council road assets manager John Schwass said the council was trying to get a solution before more traffic was channelled off the expressway and "the lack of funding from the Government wasn't helping".
The council was negotiating with the New Zealand Transport Authority for an upgrade of the whole area.
Mr Schwass thought the safest crossing scenario was a central island with a railing. People would have to wait for a gap in the traffic to cross half of the road, before again waiting to cross to the other side.
