Ports chief: Quay St works have led to havoc
Cutting sole accessway to single lane causing ‘huge’ freight issues
The Ports of Auckland chief executive says he wasn’t told before the public of the Quay St roadworks starting, which has led to “havoc” with freight entering the port.
The reduction of the street to a single lane, which is the sole road entrance to the port, has resulted in “significant complaints” from the trucking industry on delays, says Tony Gibson, the head of the billiondollar, council-owned facility.
While he and the ports’ management were aware of the $321 million enhancement plans for Quay St in downtown Auckland, he says they were given no forewarning of construction starting in December 2018.
“Our infrastructure manager, Alistair Kirk, sits on a number of committees which includes what was going on around Quay St, and at no time at those meetings were we ever informed about when it was likely to happen,” Gibson said.
Auckland Transport is overseeing various construction projects on Quay St leading to the 2021 America’s Cup, including strengthening the sea wall, and permanently reducing four lanes of traffic to two. “When it was announced by AT, we said, ‘We really need to see the [traffic] modelling’, and we asked AT, ‘What impact will this have on traffic flows?”’ Gibson said.
“The impression we got from them at that stage was there’ll be no impact. But that’s a ridiculous scenario, because there has been significant impact and I would have thought beforehand they would have thought about the impact, both on freight, but also on people, as a result of the works.
“Unless you get the freight right and integrated, then you’re going to cause havoc, and that’s exactly what it has caused.”
The Weekend Herald reported on April 13 peak-hour travel times along Quay St had more than doubled this year, taking more than 22 minutes for a 1.8km journey when tested.
AT chief executive Shane Ellison said in a statement it had received no “specific” complaints from PoAL about trucking companies facing turnaround delays.
He maintained that PoAL had been involved in planning for the waterfront with AT since early 2017 but he did not specify whether Gibson had been told before the public.
“Since mid-2018, PoAL representatives have participated in regular stakeholder meetings involving PoAL representatives covering many issues important to them — this includes addressing concerns raised around access to Queens Wharf and Princes Wharf, both during and after utilities relocations, and in the lead-up to the start of main works.”
Gibson publicly expressed his displeasure to Auckland councillors at a meeting and said he made the “flippant comment” that “I found out [about Quay St works] as a member of the public on Facebook”.
Auckland Councillor Desley Simpson was at the meeting.
“The fact nobody picked up the phone to talk to Ports of Auckland’s CEO, who arguably leads our biggest commercial operation on the waterfront, is an absolute disgrace,” she said.
Transport advocacy group National Road Carriers chief executive David Aitken said congestion for freight travelling into PoAL was “definitely a problem” repeatedly expressed by truck drivers.
“No one has been able to show us any modelling before they did this work on what it would do to traffic flows,” Aitken said.
“It’s [Quay St road works] having a massive effect on congestion and travel times. Containers are sitting on wharfs longer, someone’s got to pay for that. Also, the amount of time they’re sitting in traffic. It costs about $120 per hour to run a truck.”
There were about 2000 truck movements in and out of the PoAL daily, Aitken said.
AT’s Ellison said signals at the PoAL entrance intersection were monitored and changed to ensure the smooth movement of freight in and out of the port, and around the city centre.
AT said it had devised several Traffic Management Plans for “maintaining through-traffic capacity” on Quay St, including some restrictions on turning movements into and out of side streets and traffic light phasing.