Motorists set to cop more fines with 24/7 bus lanes

The Automobile Association is calling on authorities to make sure motorists know about bus lane changes in order to avoid being copped with a $150 fine. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Extra 24-hour bus lanes to be enforced in central Auckland from mid-October will have markings telling motorists at which points they can move into them to turn left.

Auckland Transport has been marking out 1.2 kilometres of new lanes, to help to minimise disruptions to bus timetable during construction work in the CBD including trenching for the $2.5 billion underground railway from Britomart.

The Automobile Association is calling on the council agency to make sure motorists know about the changes to avoid $150 fines for using bus lanes, other than for 50 metres before turning left at intersections.

The new bus lanes - to come into force on October 18 - will be on:

• Fanshawe Street between Daldy and Halsey Streets
• Halsey Street between Fanshawe and Victoria Street West
• Victoria Street West between Graham and Queen Streets
• Wellesley Street West between Sale and Queen Streets
• Mayoral Drive between Cook and Wellesley Streets
• Hobson Street between Wellesley and Victoria Streets

AA spokesman Barney Irvine says his organisation supports the new lanes, but wants Auckland Transport to pull out all stops to make drivers aware of them.

"These are big changes and a lot of people are simply not going to be aware of them. So Auckland Transport is doing absolutely the right thing in issuing warnings in the first month [instead of fines]...but what we'd like to see before that is a bigger focus on building public awareness."

Although the law prohibits drivers from entering bus lanes further away than 50m before turning left, Auckland Transport says it will issue $150 infringement notices only if they do so within 70m of an intersection.

But Mr Irvine said it remained difficult for drivers to judge even the longer distance, and his organisation wanted a greater allowance such as an entire street block, between two intersections.

"So if you were driving in a bus lane, you come to an intersection, you go through an intersection and continue to drive in a bus lane - then you get pinged. But if you don't, then you don't. And that just removes a lot of the grey area."

Mr Irvine said the fact that entering a bus lane too early draws a $150 - as opposed to a drivers using a cell phone being fined $80 - was somewhat difficult to understand.

An Auckland Transport spokesman said it was the Government which set the level of fines, and the new bus lanes would have markings to make the 50m zone clear to motorists.

He said parking officers would issue warning notices rather than fines for about the first three weeks after the new lanes come into force on October 18.

That will coincide with diversions to the beginnings and ends of some bus routes.

• For temporary bus route diversion maps, visit
https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/service-announcements/bus-stop-changes-in-the-city-centre/