Ask Phoebe: No risk from gas-bottle area

At the entrance to the Orakei Basin, at the bottom of Upland Rd, there is a wire cage enclosing 32 large nitrogen gas cylinders feeding into a metal box. Though a sign on the cage says "temporary", the installation has been there more than five years. My questions are: how safe are the cylinders? What purpose does this set-up serve? And how long is temporary? Paul Martin, Remuera.

The installation is the property of Vector. The nitrogen cylinders are there to pressurise the 110kV power cables that run from Transpower's Penrose substation to Vector's Quay St substation.

The site is visited weekly and the cylinders are pressure-tested. The cylinders are replaced when the pressure drops below a certain level.

Dry nitrogen is a safe, non-reactive gas that is used in a number of applications, including car tyres. Vector plans to replace the cylinders at Upland Rd with smaller ones, and replace the fence. It expects that the cylinders will be needed until 2014.

Could you please tell me if the Eastern Freeway/Highway through Meadowbank/Remuera etc is still on the to-do list? As far as I know the land for the highway is still designated for this purpose. Is this correct? Simon Dowd, Meadowbank.

No, it's not. In December 2004, Auckland City Council pulled the highway component from the Eastern Transport Corridor. Council meeting minutes from that date state that the corridor will be protected for any future development of transport infrastructure, such as bus routes, but not for an actual motorway.

Instead, the council decided to investigate local roading improvements for business, university and housing developments in Tamaki to better connect the area to State Highway 1 in the south and to railway stations on the main trunk line.

Chris Smith, acting group manager of transport policy, says the council is focusing its energies on the Ameti (Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative) project, which extends from Merton Rd in the north to Sylvia Park in the south and Manukau City in the east. There is no provision in the Long Term Council Community Plan for funding for roading north of Merton Rd.

Coming from Bond St towards Great North Rd, the arrows indicate that you can only turn right or left into Great North, but not go straight ahead. Grosvenor St is not directly opposite Bond St, it is offset about 50m to the west, but cars do drive straight ahead from Bond St into Grosvenor. Is this legal? Sol de Sully, Auckland.

To get to Grosvenor from Bond St you must first veer to the left as you go through the Great North Rd intersection. If you went straight ahead, you would drive into the Red Baron Motorcycles store.

* Ian Walker from Manukau City was greatly impressed by the actions of a particular traffic officer during a recent traffic light meltdown at the junction of Wiri Station Rd and Druces Rd. Mr Walker said that initially he was apprehensive about getting to work with the traffic lights out, but the officer concerned (you know who you are) was directing traffic in a very professional manner with strong clear instructions. Good work.