Tunnel faces ‘gridlock’

Critics say lights at the entry to the Waterview tunnel will stall traffic.

Smanager Brett Gliddon said the signals would be able to control traffic through the tunnel in both directions. Delays caused by the signals would be offset by major improvements to travel times and traffic flows.

“When the Waterview connection opens, as part of the wider western ring route, it will be a significant step in transforming the way people and freight move around New Zealand and Auckland,” he said.

Gliddon said completing the connection would allow more cars to travel on motorways, and reduce the number of cars on local roads. “It is not a means of removing congestion altogether, especially in peak periods, which is no different to other major cities across the world.” were not expecting to have to queue at ramp signals on a project billed as the final piece in the Auckland motorway system.

“It could lead to really significant delays and undercut the journey time savings people have been expecting,” he said.

Transport blogger Patrick Reynolds said the western ring route was to provide free-flowing traffic but it had been badly designed. “The reason for that is because of the failure to build parallel rapid transit. There is no busway,” Reynolds said.

He claimed the ramp signals were being installed because of limitations on the ventilation system in the event of traffic coming to a standstill inside the tunnels.

But NZTA Auckland when the giant Northwestern and Southwestern Motorway connection opens in April.

At the Waterview end, ramp signals will operate on both ramps into the tunnel, and on the longer east-bound ramp out of the tunnel. Motorists won’t have to wait at lights heading west out of the tunnel.

Signals will operate at the Mt Roskill end of the tunnel, including the on-ramp at Maioro St.

Waterview is New Zealand’s largest roading project. On top of the $1.4b for the tunnel an extra $600 million is being spent on widening the Northwestern Motorway and raising the marine causeway to cope with traffic to and from the tunnels.

Labour’s Auckland issues spokesman Phil Twyford said Aucklanders ignificant delays, even gridlock, are predicted when traffic lights are installed at the entry to Auckland’s $1.4 billion Waterview tunnel.

The New Zealand Transport Agency has revealed that motorists will have to queue at ramp signals