Get moving: Lights not the best answer

By PHOEBE FALCONER

Q: I travel through Ellerslie shopping centre every day and I find that the pedestrian crossing in the middle of Ellerslie causes serious delays, especially at peak hours. Wouldn't lights at that point be a more efficient way of getting lots of people across the road? Nigel Hitchcock, Mt Wellington.

A: Auckland City has no plans to put lights in here. Apparently drivers are very good at stopping for pedestrians, and the feeling is that a traffic light could be more dangerous, with impatient pedestrians taking the risk of crossing instead of waiting for the green light, and motorists speeding to beat the lights.

But doesn't that logic apply to all pedestrian traffic lights?

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Q: There is already a small motorway going almost nowhere called the Mangere motorway. Couldn't this be used to link the North Shore and city with Manukau? Richard Griffin, Auckland.

A: It could and it will. This motorway, properly called the Southwestern Motorway and definitely going somewhere, is to be extended through Mt Roskill and Avondale to the Northwestern Motorway, and thence to the Northern Motorway via Hobsonville. It is primarily being built as a ring road rather than an access to the city.

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Q: Why does the traffic light on Khyber Pass Rd, near Claremont St, stay red for straight-ahead traffic when traffic turning right on to the motorway onramp gets a green light? There seems to be no other merging traffic. Juliana Flaxman-Hendriks, Auckland.

A: That light stays red while pedestrians cross Khyber Pass Rd and while traffic from Parkfield Tce and right-turners from Boston Rd get the green. When they've had their turn, you get the green.

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Q: On several occasions recently I have been going to use the Curran St onramp to the Harbour Bridge, only to find when I get there that the onramp is closed, and I have to take a long detour via Westhaven. Why can't whoever it is put a notice at the top of Curran St? Moyle Sarty, Devonport. And a related question from Eric Parr of Parnell: When will someone fix the seriously undulating surface of the northbound lane on the western clip-on?

A: Good news and bad news. Transit has asked the contractor doing maintenance on the bridge to check and see if it's possible to put a notice at the top of Curran St. And that lane on the clip-on is due to be resurfaced in (wait for it) December 2010, but the undulations are a function of bridge structure.


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