Laws of road congestion

Chris Bishop (March 7) says that new Hutt Valley roads will reduce congestion, but the Fundamental Law of Road Congestion says otherwise; adding road capacity does not alleviate congestion on any sort of major urban road. Wellingtonians know this. According to the powers that be at the time, Karo Drive (then known as the Inner City Bypass) was going to reduce traffic on the quays sufficiently to take lanes away, but that has never happened. Instead, traffic has expanded to fill the space available.

The same will be true of four lanes to the planes (already, and sensibly, rejected by Wellington voters) – doubling (or more) the number of car lanes through Mt Victoria will double (or more) traffic to, from and within the Miramar peninsula. Is that what anyone actually wants?

This government is keen to reduce waste, and a very good way to do that is to follow evidence rather than ideology. Michael Mellor, Seatoun

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twice he used to run an airline. M Nixon, Berhampore

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