Parking in the T2/T3 lane at 09.01 AM

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richms

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#1652196 17-Oct-2016 11:27

SepticSceptic:

Drivers who dont use the T2/T3 lanes, when empty, during the non T2/T3 times, but try and merge into one non T2/T3 lane at the beginning of the T2/T3 start lanes.

Constellation Drive ....

If there is parking in them then its usually better to move over early rather than find someone has parked in it and get stuck behind them. Onewa road is terrible for people getting stuck behind parked cars and then pushing out into a stream of 55k+ traffic causing near misses.

Richard rich.ms

MikeAqua

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#1652212 17-Oct-2016 11:42

Based on my visits to Auckland - Manukau Road seems to be a shocker. Doesn't matter which lane you choose. The left lane gets blocked by parked cars at times, the right lane by right turning traffic.

Mike

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#1652497 17-Oct-2016 20:20

MikeAqua:

Based on my visits to Auckland - Manukau Road seems to be a shocker. Doesn't matter which lane you choose. The left lane gets blocked by parked cars at times, the right lane by right turning traffic.

I head south down it every day and have witnessed a few close calls where people come flying over the hill only to encounter a car parked in the middle of the road waiting to turn right.

Since this T3 lane opened it has been gridlock after 4-4:30pm all the way to the motorway offramp in newmarket with a whole lane basically empty.

Jase2985

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#1652511 17-Oct-2016 20:45

it to try and encourage people to use public transport, instead of spending 40mins sitting in your car spend less time on the bus

Scott3

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#1652569 17-Oct-2016 22:11

Often Bus/T2/T3 lanes are put in places where there happens to be space, generally these aren't bottlenecks.

In these cases they don't add any capacity to the road in vehicle/hour terms. They only in people/hour terms by encouraging people to Bus/Carpool rather than driving sole occupant cars, by letting them skip the queue in effect.

A good example would be motorway on ramps. Capacity at peak times is set by what the motorway itself can handle without slowing to a crawl. This is controlled by ramp signals (timing adjusted to allow for estimated transit lane users). Reverting this lane to a normal lane wouldn't move any more vehicles or gain any efficiency.

SepticSceptic:

Drivers who dont use the T2/T3 lanes, when empty, during the non T2/T3 times, but try and merge into one non T2/T3 lane at the beginning of the T2/T3 start lanes.

Constellation Drive ....

I assume most people see the green painted line and decide it is not for them. If you are going to drive in a T2/T3 lane you need to check the current time and lane operational hours, if the normal lane is uncongested, it is often easiest to just drive in it. Plus the issues with parked cars.

old3eyes

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#1652645 18-Oct-2016 08:39

Scott3:

Often Bus/T2/T3 lanes are put in places where there happens to be space, generally these aren't bottlenecks.

In these cases they don't add any capacity to the road in vehicle/hour terms. They only in people/hour terms by encouraging people to Bus/Carpool rather than driving sole occupant cars, by letting them skip the queue in effect.

A good example would be motorway on ramps. Capacity at peak times is set by what the motorway itself can handle without slowing to a crawl. This is controlled by ramp signals (timing adjusted to allow for estimated transit lane users). Reverting this lane to a normal lane wouldn't move any more vehicles or gain any efficiency.

And those ramp signals would be the biggest waster of motor fuel around. Turn them on at 3.30pm when there is no traffic on them and light traffic on the motorways. A bureaucrats dream. Turn them off and most of the traffic would flow way better. Never did see a final cost for them but it started out at $35 mil, them went to $75 mil and then it all went quiet..

Regards,

Old3eyes

MikeAqua

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#1652680 18-Oct-2016 08:57

The Auckland Airport to CBD bus service has been rather hopeless the few times I have tried it.

Someone from AT should take a field trip to Wellington and take a ride on the 'airport flyer'. Great service, clean, comfortable buses and easy to pay with snapper. All for ~$7 to CBD.

Mike

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Scott3

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#1653177 18-Oct-2016 21:33

old3eyes:

And those ramp signals would be the biggest waster of motor fuel around. Turn them on at 3.30pm when there is no traffic on them and light traffic on the motorways. A bureaucrats dream. Turn them off and most of the traffic would flow way better. Never did see a final cost for them but it started out at $35 mil, them went to $75 mil and then it all went quiet..

Measured results show material benefits to traffic throughput...

The measured results show that with the ramp signals operating, there is an overall 15% improvement in travel speeds and a 5-15% increase in the rate of vehicles flowing on the motorway.

Source:

https://at.govt.nz/about-us/asset-maintenance/ramp-signals

richms

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#1653185 18-Oct-2016 22:02

They also discourage the short trips that many people do on the motorways when the other roads are perfectly capable of getting them places. sylvia park to ellerslie is one that I used to do quite often and now just use the mt wellington highway and then penrose road because of the queue to get on.

Richard rich.ms

Aredwood

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#1656379 22-Oct-2016 22:15

Ramp signals would have been good if they were designed and operated properly. But most of them have the lane length between the lights and merge point way too close. So you end up with cars doing 60K or so trying to merge with 100K traffic. Greville rd onramp used to be terrible for this. Have noticed that the ramp signals there are not switched on anywhere near as often now.

Far better would be leaving the ramp signals off until the motorway speed drops to around 50K. Then use the ramp metering to stop the motorway from gridlocking completely.

And what's the point of having those T2 lanes bypassing the ramp signals if they never enforce them? Sth eastern hwy to southern motorway northbound - at least 1 in 3 cars during afternoon only had the driver inside.

Sam91

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#1656383 22-Oct-2016 22:28

Aredwood:

Ramp signals would have been good if they were designed and operated properly. But most of them have the lane length between the lights and merge point way too close. So you end up with cars doing 60K or so trying to merge with 100K traffic. Greville rd onramp used to be terrible for this. Have noticed that the ramp signals there are not switched on anywhere near as often now.

Far better would be leaving the ramp signals off until the motorway speed drops to around 50K. Then use the ramp metering to stop the motorway from gridlocking completely.

And what's the point of having those T2 lanes bypassing the ramp signals if they never enforce them? Sth eastern hwy to southern motorway northbound - at least 1 in 3 cars during afternoon only had the driver inside.

Yeah Greville is terrible.

Here's my rant about the Greville T2 lane from another thread:

Sam91:

Still waiting for them to prioritise bus traffic at Greville Road. The buses pull off the motorway at Greville Road and jump straight back on at Greville Road, so they avoid the bulk of the traffic. At the end of the on ramp there is a bus lane, but leading up to the bus lane is a T2 lane. The T2 lane ends near the start of the bus lane, so the buses get stuck behind all the T2 traffic trying to merge with the other congested lanes. If you changed the T2 lane to a bus lane it would make congestion worse for cars. Which would act as disincentive for drivers, and at the same time it would incentivise public transport by making the journey even faster.

Google Streetview for anyone wondering.

At least there's a fix in the works.

richms

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#1656385 22-Oct-2016 22:34

Aredwood:

Ramp signals would have been good if they were designed and operated properly. But most of them have the lane length between the lights and merge point way too close. So you end up with cars doing 60K or so trying to merge with 100K traffic. Greville rd onramp used to be terrible for this. Have noticed that the ramp signals there are not switched on anywhere near as often now.

Far better would be leaving the ramp signals off until the motorway speed drops to around 50K. Then use the ramp metering to stop the motorway from gridlocking completely.

And what's the point of having those T2 lanes bypassing the ramp signals if they never enforce them? Sth eastern hwy to southern motorway northbound - at least 1 in 3 cars during afternoon only had the driver inside.

Perhaps they were not anticipating the glut of nissan marches and toyota ist's and other gutless pieces of crap when they designed the distance.

Richard rich.ms

Linuxluver

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#1670868 14-Nov-2016 16:50

ScuL:

Just venting on this one. I find it incomprehensible some people decide to park in the various transit lanes around Auckland right after the closure time. Both mornings and evenings..

It happens quite a lot on Auckland's busiest roads and even though the lanes officially close at 9 AM, traffic is still quite considerable at that time. The bottleneck a parked vehicle causes by buses having to move around it adds a huge amount of delay to the traffic backing up further down the road.

I know technically there is nothing illegal about parking in a transit lane at 09.01, but people doing this must realise the hassle they're causing by doing so.

I suppose extending the official hours of the T-lanes would take care of this problem but that wouldn't necessarily reduce vehicle loads because around this time using two or more lanes for traffic is very efficient to clear up the morning jams.

It's probably annoyed locals who resented losing "their" parking places to a T3 lane they see as always empty.

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