Judith Lacy's Jottings: Napier Rd and Main St in Palmerston North

Oh Keith (Bryant), your intersection is not for the faint hearted. Photo / Judith Lacy

Opinion:

I love Napier. It's got a relaxed vibe, great architecture and sea views.

I don't love Napier Rd. Truth be told, I detest it more each day. Speeding in a work car is not a good look (speeding in any vehicle is also not a good look), so I marvel as I'm doing 50km/h and fellow motorists pass me like I'm a tin tortoise.

Like the spinning wheel at Victoria Esplanade, it can be heart-in-your-mouth stuff just getting on to Napier Rd.

Waka Kotahi has announced it will install traffic signals at the intersection of Roberts Line and SH3/Napier Rd. Of course, today would be good. I especially feel for the bus drivers trying to keep to a timetable while making a right-hand turn towards the city in the mornings.

But what about the Keith St intersection? I feel safer navigating a right-hand turn there on my bike than in a car.

Last week, I was astonished to see a man in a branded work vehicle struggle to turn right into Keith St as he was holding a cellphone to his ear, engaged in animated conversation. He's obviously lacking brain cells on two counts, but he's not the only one.

It would be great for the authorities to run a road rules campaign about this intersection. Yes, the top of the T goes first but there's so much happening with lanes merging and traffic coming from Ashhurst - not to mention Limbrick St.

Drivers tend to freeze until there isn't a vehicle in sight. Perhaps understandable, but I respectfully suggest if you don't know who gives way to who to avoid that junction - at least until there's improvements of one sort or another.

Then there's the Upper Main St intersection. I had to restrain myself when the testing officer took my friend down there and told him to turn right.

"This is unfair, surely you should only test advanced drivers down there," I wanted to protest. But I had been warned to not say a thing when I got in the car and so didn't.

My friend safely got us into Main St, but shortly after the testing officer was yanking on the steering wheel saying we had nearly hit a car. To this day, I'm not sure what happened other than my friend didn't pass. I do wonder if the effort of getting on to Main St momentarily sapped his concentration.

So, now we have left Napier in all its forms behind but as we head into Main St there's the turning bay opposite Fitzroy St that surely needs a realignment.

Once we've navigating all that, you hit a lineup of cars waiting to turn into Ruahine St but there isn't enough space so you end up either queuing or ducking and diving.

No wonder there are so many coffee outlets along the eastern entrance into Palmy.

Of course, Kelvin Grove and Terrace End aren't the only suburbs with challenging intersections. Ferguson and Pitt almost defies description and the Rangikitei/Tremaine intersection is notorious for lane sweeping.

Napier Rd is, of course, a highway and by their very nature highways are both blessings and curses. They get us from A to B more efficiently than suburban streets and can accommodate more than two lanes. However, they can also divide communities and be difficult to cross. All signs of Palmy's growing pains at that end of town.

Short of a magic wand, we're stuck with Napier Rd and Main St for the foreseeable future. But we don't have to be stuck with a mindset of driving like there's no one else on the road.

Napier - and I assume Napier Rd - is named after General Sir Charles James Napier, who was Commander-in-Chief in India. While fighting against Napoleon in Portugal, Napier had two horses shot out from under him. I'm grateful that's unlikely to happen to me travelling down Napier Rd.