KEY POINTS:
Organisers of next weekend's V8 Supercars street race in Hamilton say they're confident there won't be a repeat of the gridlock that plagued Saturday night's Balloons over Waikato nightglow.
Punters trying to get to the nightglow at Waikato University were forced into hour-long waits for buses for the
five park and rides to the event.
Environment Waikato's land transport operation manager, Russell Turnbull, said a private company contracted by the event organisers failed to implement parts of the traffic management plan, which meant there were cars on streets where there shouldn't have been.
Compounding the problem was the number of spectators who drove to the university, which meant traffic ground to a halt in surrounding streets.
"The buses simply couldn't get to and from the event so the queues built up over time and it got more and more congested. We're not happy that we had to make people wait, but our buses couldn't push their way through the lines."
Mr Turnbull said the difference for the V8s was that multiple agencies including the Hamilton City Council, police and Transit were taking responsibility for the traffic management plan.
"It'll be impressed on everyone [today] what can happen when plans aren't implemented. We've had first-hand evidence of that at the weekend."
Around 60,000 spectators are expected to watch the V8s and organisers are putting on 100 free buses.
The plan is to cope with the traffic and also to minimise the "carbon footprint" of the event.
As New Zealand racing ace Greg Murphy and 27 other supercharged drivers roar around Hamilton streets from Friday to Sunday, the event's organisers will be paying for free buses throughout the city to reduce both overall carbon emissions and traffic management headaches.
"At least we are doing something," Hamilton 400 supercar event director Steve Vuleta told the Herald when asked about the compatibility between performance cars travelling at up to 250km/h and the environment.
He said that although traffic management and allowing the city to keep functioning with minimal congestion were the main purposes of the free buses, his organisation was sincere about trying to offset environmental impacts by paying for 2000 trees to be planted around Hamilton for each of the seven years it would be there.
Hamilton City Council sustainable environment leader Liz Hallsworth said: "We envisage many hundreds of people who would not normally hop on buses will do so over the weekend."
Free bus rides will in fact be available from Thursday, to coincide with the closure of streets around the 3.4km racing circuit between the central city and Frankton.
Transit NZ is meanwhile urging long-distance traffic to steer well clear of Hamilton, and to reserve State Highway 1B between Taupiri and Cambridge for vehicles heading to parking zones just outside the city limits, at Puketaha and Ruakura.
Although motorists will be charged $10 a day to park there, free bus shuttles will run from 6.30am to 10.30pm to and from the race circuit.
Transit says traffic not heading for Hamilton should take wide detours, either through Matamata on State Highway 27 or to the west of the city along State Highway 39 between Ngaruawahia and Otorohanga.
Regional manager Kaye Clark said that because this would be the first year of the event in Hamilton, congestion and delays were likely on the highway network around the city.
www.hamilton.co.nz has a list of road closures and walking zones.
