V8 race equals Friday chaos, says traffic expert

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Motorists face the risk of gridlock in Central Auckland going home on the Friday of the V8 supercar race, says a traffic expert.

Traffic evidence and the modelling behind it were the main focus during the second day of resource consents hearings this weekend to hold the contentious race in Auckland for seven years from 2006.

Andrew Murray, transportation technical director of Beca Infrastructure, queried modelling work that showed traffic chaos could be avoided. Other traffic experts were confident sufficient steps could be taken to avoid chaos by reducing the number of vehicles coming into and past the city on the motorways.

Mr Murray told the three planning commissioners hearing the consent application on Saturday that there was a risk of gridlock in the Wellington St, Union St and Pitt St area, which could spill onto parts of the motorway network if measures like cones and active policing were not in place.

He said there was already heavy queuing in the area during the evening peak, the modelling to date had relied on broad assumptions and a lot more work needed to be done on the level of traffic reduction to operate roads in the central city.

Stephen Reddish of Traffic Planning Consultants said the main congestion risk was on Friday evening when workers and race spectators all wanted to leave the city at the same time.

But he said modelling indicated that the main risk was centred on the Wellington St on-ramp to the Northern Motorway and there would be limited impact on the wider network.

Mr Reddish and traffic engineer Graham Tuohey both expressed confidence in the traffic modelling and said plans to reduce the amount of traffic coming into the city on the Friday were feasible and achievable.

Mr Tuohey agreed more work was needed on traffic movement in the central city.

Stephen Hewett, land transport technical director at Beca Infrastructure, said there was excess capacity on Auckland's buses, ferries and trains to comfortably handle motorists who could be expected to switch from cars to public transport.

The commissioners and advisers acting for them probed the validity of the modelling, the assumptions used to come up with traffic reduction figures and the different opinions being expressed.

One traffic consultant advising the commissioners, Pravin Dayaram, said the question had not been answered what would happen if a fatal flaw was subsequently turned up by the modelling.

Chief commissioner David McGregor said it would help if the traffic experts could get together and reach a position where the commissioners were more confident about the traffic evidence they had to rely on.

A lawyer for the applicants, Malcolm Maclean, supported this approach but said both Transit and North Shore City Council were adopting a different stance. Transit is due to present evidence today opposing the event, followed by North Shore City Council on Wednesday.

The St Marys Bay Association said the V8 car race was in a dumb location and should not take place until the city had the infrastructure to support such an event.

Queried plan

Traffic reductions planned during Friday morning peak hours:

40 per cent fewer trips from North Shore to Central Auckland.

20 per cent fewer trips from North Shore to south of Central Auckland.

30 per cent fewer trips on the Southern and Northwestern Motorways to Central Auckland.