Road closure leads to traffic chaos in Nelson
Traffic yesterday in Nelson was busy but flowing as Nelsonians adapted to a road closure that caused chaos and gridlocked streets on Saturday.
Nelson mayor Nick Smith copped an earful when drivers were held up for hours heading into Nelson.
Resealing works on Whakatu Drive closed the road over the weekend, and caused snarl-ups on routes heading into Nelson from Richmond and Stoke.
Angie and Hamish Beard, who live in Upper Moutere, said on Saturday there was a traffic jam from the lights in Richmond all the way to Bishopdale.
‘‘It was horrendous,’’ Beard said. ‘‘There were cars doing U-turns and heading off back. It was ugly.’’
‘‘Why aren’t they doing it at night?’’ he asked. ‘‘It’s a bloody dog’s breakfast.’’
One Facebook user said he was faster on foot than the cars stuck in traffic on Nayland Rd and Main Rd, Stoke.
Smith said yesterday he had received ‘‘a storm of protest and anger’’ at what ‘‘looked both poorly communicated and coordinated roadworks’’.
One person he spoke to was an ambulance driver who was ‘‘particularly upset’’ over a trip that should have taken the emergency services 10 minutes took more than 45min to navigate through the gridlock, even with sirens running.
Smith said people were right to be frustrated about the ‘‘triple whammy’’ of State Highway 6 being closed to Blenheim, which forced additional vehicles south at the same time as Whakatu Drive was closed, as well as the roadworks in lower Nayland Rd, which exacerbated the scale of the snarl-up.
At 7:30 am yesterday, he went out to check that additional signage had been put in place on Nayland Rd, indicating that it was closed for southbound traffic going in to Suffolk Rd.
Smith said he planned to check exactly when the council was informed of the closure to better co-ordinate the different roadworks.
‘‘The job that council is doing with the rising main in the lower end of Suffolk Rd is important, but not urgent, and it may have been possible with the contractor to rejig that so that it wasn’t compounding the problem,’’ he said.
On Facebook, Smith said he would be writing to Waka Kotahi about the issue – but not until he had the full facts outlining whose responsibility it was to provide a traffic management plan and what modelling was done – ‘‘because what occurred was not acceptable’’.
‘‘I want to have the weekend’s chaos reviewed by both council and Waka
Kotahi NZTA, to ensure the poor coordination and communication is not repeated.’’
Smith said with any sort of infrastructure, you needed to build resilience.
The council’s Regional Transport Committee was being formed this week, and he planned to be on it.
A further long term issue he wished to pursue was the connection of Hill St North through to Suffolk Rd, so that there was ‘‘greater resilience’’ in the connections between Nelson and Tasman.
The Ridgeway and Suffolk Rd did provide a further alternative route that became important in incidents such as accidents that blocked the highway, storm events, or major roadworks, he said.
‘‘My view is, while the event could have been better co-ordinated, it also emphasises the importance of having alternative routes and resilience in the network.’’
State Highway 6 Whakatu Dr was closed entirely to 5.30am this morning.
It will then have night closures between 8pm and 5.30am from today to Thursday.
Waka Kotahi thanked drivers for their patience and understanding while essential maintenance was carried out.
‘‘We do understand that the delays caused by roadworks are frustrating for drivers.
‘‘However, maintaining roads and the state highway network is vitally important as we know drivers like potholes even less.
‘‘A full closure was chosen to let us do this work as swiftly as possible and reduce the longer term disruption to residents and road users, if work was done during the week.
‘‘If we did this under stop/go traffic
‘‘Why aren’t they doing it at night? It’s a bloody dog’s breakfast.’’ Hamish Beard
management, completing the Whakatu Drive resurfacing could have taken up to three weeks.’’
Waka Kotahi top of the south regional manager Mark Owen previously told Stuff that every effort was being made to cause as little disruption as possible to drivers, and the road was being closed over the weekend due to traffic numbers being at their lowest.