Ask Phoebe: Changes afoot for busy junction - but not lights

Can you ask Auckland Transport if there are firm plans to install traffic lights at the increasingly busy T-intersection of Richmond Rd and Surrey Cres, and if so when? With the recent building of three apartment buildings in the vicinity, and the opening of shops along Surrey Cres, the need for a controlled intersection and pedestrian crossing for increasing foot traffic is now urgent. Paul Titchener, Grey Lynn

I asked and here is AT's response.

"Auckland Transport is investigating walking and cycling improvements on Surrey Cres and Richmond Rd as part of the Waitemata Safe Routes project. Waitemata Safe Routes is one of the Urban Cycle Programme schemes Auckland Transport is delivering over the next three years.

There are no firm plans to put in traffic signals at the intersection of Richmond Rd and Surrey Cres but we will be looking to improve pedestrian and cycle safety.

A couple of years ago we improved the intersection by removing a left slip from Surrey to Richmond."

Can you find out why the motorways in Auckland are never straight lines? I assume that the planners believe that the constant S-type bends they have built into the Auckland motorways reduce accidents. If their argument is that they can't build straight motorways, I suggest they think again. The "race track" along St Mary's Bay is a case in point. Sam Howlett, Auckland.

We all know the old saying, "there are no straight lines in nature", and New Zealand's motorways bear this out. The curves and bends, minimised wherever possible, are a reflection of our topography and the changing patterns of economic and social development. To build straight motorways in New Zealand would be prohibitively expensive and cause unnecessary disruption and hazards. As a bit of background, courtesy of the Transport Agency's website, New Zealand's roads were mostly developed from original bullock tracks.

However, our ancestors took the line of least resistance, by going around swamps, hills and sometimes alongside rivers until they found good points to cross, because it was easier, even though it took a while.

Formed roads began to appear for traffic going to and from ports, goldfields, farms and elsewhere. Today's highways carry heavy, sophisticated and costly vehicles, but might well lie on the foundations of bullock tracks established 150 years ago.

And for the statistically minded, the longest stretch of straight road in the state highway network is on SH7 through Culverden in the South Island, with a 13.7km straight section. Some roads on the Canterbury Plains have even longer straights.

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