Avoid toll road to dodge holiday queues say transport chiefs

Transport chiefs want drivers to consider giving their new $356 million toll motorway north of Auckland a wide berth today to beat the Easter getaway congestion blues.

The addition of the Northern Gateway toll road between Orewa and Puhoi has not altered the Transport Agency's usual holiday-weekend plea drivers to consider using State Highway 16 through Kaukapakapa to reach Wellsford from Auckland.

"People can beat the traditional congestion bottleneck between Puhoi and Warkworth on SH1 by using SH16 as an alternative," northern network operations manager Tommy Parker said yesterday.

That means also bypassing the toll road, which feeds traffic to the narrow ribbon of highway north from Puhoi, where holiday weekend queues sometimes tail 17km back from Warkworth.

Although the 7km toll road itself is likely to remain reasonably free-flowing, even towards a predicted traffic peak at about 4pm today, the Transport Agency and a team of "ambassadors" are braced for queues of motorists at off-road payment machines at the BP service centre south of Silverdale.

It has added a third machine for the Easter crowds, even though it is still urging motorists to avoid queuing by paying by phone or through the internet - either before setting out from home or within three days of using the road, which relies on overhead cameras linked to the national motor registration centre to capture vehicle number plates.

The agency is reminding motorists they do not need a pre-arranged account to pay on-line or by phone, although they will have to be Visa or Mastercard holders.

A network of roadside monitoring cameras has also been extended to Warkworth, to allow the agency to fine-tune traffic signals at the town's Hill St intersection on State Highway 1, a notorious holiday chokepoint where a $20 million road improvement project is starting soon.

Mr Parker defended the addition of the toll road to his network, saying it worked "brilliantly" at normal times.

"It is only at holiday weekends that we have problems," he told the Herald.

"State Highway 16 is maintained for this very reason - we monitor it as well, and the feedback is that it always has free-flow conditions."

He said the third payment machine at the BP centre was being set up only temporarily at this stage, but the agency was considering making it a permanent fixture.

TRAINS OFF BUT BUSES RUN TOMORROW

No Auckland passenger trains will run tomorrow, Good Friday, but buses will operate on to holiday timetables and extra services will ferry rugby fans to Eden Park for the Blues v Lions kickoff at 7.35pm.

Free travel is available on special bus services from Albany or the Civic Centre on Queen St for ticketholders to the Super 14 match between the Auckland and South African sides.

Most of the rail network will also be serviced by replacement buses through the rest of Easter Weekend because of construction work on the Newmarket and New Lynn stations and duplication of tracks on the western line.

Ferries will run to holiday timetables tomorrow, Sunday and Monday, and special services will run to Rakino Island on Saturday from central Auckland via Devonport for a jazz festival.

On Auckland's motorway network, the St Marks on-ramp will close for two weeks from Saturday for enabling work on the $195 million replacement Newmarket Viaduct project.