State Highways you'd like to see improved

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#1335622 2-Jul-2015 11:44

Yes, resource consents. Many of the great infrastructure projects of the past like our national railway network would never ever be built now if they'd had to go through all of the red tape, hearings and other bureaucracy that exists now.

MikeAqua

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#1335790 2-Jul-2015 14:40

I'm in favour of 2 x 2 lanes with median barrier and bulldozing/blasting whatever is in the way to accommodate on the major state highways. Then bump the speed to 110 km. Yes it would be really expensive, but there would be major savings in terms of time, fuel, freight costs, and most important accidents. Goat tracks tend to be black spots.

SH1 - Taupo to Turangi. Parts of it are still a goat track. Usually averages about a minute per km to drive if there is any traffic. Parts of desert road could use a bit of de-goating as well.

SH1 - The Puhoi to Wellsford will make a big difference simply by bypassing the light where all the traffic turns off to Matakana. But they should have bypassed Wellsford as well

SH1 - dual carriageway from Wellington Airport to Levin.

SH6 - Nelson side of Whangamoa needs de-goating. It's an important road (no rail in Nelson).

SH6 - in Nelson needs to re-routed away from the water front. It is currently in a very constrained and high hazard corridor and ruining what would otherwise be a nice area. An alternative inland route through an area that would actually be improved by an expressway is available.

Mike

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#1335792 2-Jul-2015 14:42

I though the plan was to bypass Cambridge as well?

DarthKermit: It is slowly extending both north and south from Auckland. Once the Waikato expressway is finished in about five years, it'll be as far as Cambridge. I'm not sure if there are any plans in the near future to extend it further south than this.

Mike

Jase2985

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#1335805 2-Jul-2015 14:48

MikeAqua: I though the plan was to bypass Cambridge as well?

DarthKermit: It is slowly extending both north and south from Auckland. Once the Waikato expressway is finished in about five years, it'll be as far as Cambridge. I'm not sure if there are any plans in the near future to extend it further south than this.

it does bypass Cambridge

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/waikato-expressway/cambridge/

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/cambridge-infosheet-201406.pdf

trig42

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#1335815 2-Jul-2015 14:52

Jase2985:
MikeAqua: I though the plan was to bypass Cambridge as well?

DarthKermit: It is slowly extending both north and south from Auckland. Once the Waikato expressway is finished in about five years, it'll be as far as Cambridge. I'm not sure if there are any plans in the near future to extend it further south than this.

it does bypass Cambridge

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/waikato-expressway/cambridge/

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/cambridge-infosheet-201406.pdf

Pretty sure they have built/are currently building the bits to start bypassing Cambridge (intersection/interchange with SH1B, heading south).
It will make a difference to that town (especially the KFC :))

MikeAqua

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#1335822 2-Jul-2015 15:08

Just checked and the Cambridge end is visible on google satellite near the golf course just south of Cambridge.

Mike

MikeAqua

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#1335827 2-Jul-2015 15:14

The planned Cambridge bypass was a topic we studied in high school geography 26 years ago and it wasn't a new proposal then.

Mike

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trig42

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#1335830 2-Jul-2015 15:18

MikeAqua: Just checked and the Cambridge end is visible on google satellite near the golf course just south of Cambridge.

The northern end is visible by the racecourse too. Obviously lots of photos stitched together there, it must be nearly done, due to open in 6 months.

mattwnz

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#1335841 2-Jul-2015 15:36

alasta: Aside from the shambles on SH1 north of Wellington I actually don't think our state highways are that bad. For me the main bottlenecks are the Kaikoura, Nelson and Rimutaka ranges and there isn't much that can realistically be done about them because they're constrained by geography.

Having said that I suppose a couple of passing lanes between Blenheim and Pelorus Bridge might be handy.

With the Rimutukas, they should have built a tunnel, as they have already got a rail tunnel for it. There is also a lot they can do to straighten it. The Wairarapa side of the road is terrible, but they have fixed quite a bit of the Wellingotn side. There are accidents on it an a very regular basis, and it does show up the poor drivers. Ihe big problem are the poor slow drivers who don't pull over to let people through. Every time I drive over it, twice weekly, there seems to be some issue on the road. Tourists shouldn't really drive it, as it is too hard for many. I encountered one who was driving in the middle of the road. I got them to pull over and drove it down the hill for them, as they were in no state, and were going to cause an accident. They probably need to reduce the speed down to 50km, and long trucks have trouble with the corners as many are too tight.

ObidiahSlope

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#1335851 2-Jul-2015 15:39

I live in Canterbury.

The increase in axle loadings for trucks are pounding our rural roads to death.

The Government ignores local bodies requests for increased funds to maintain these roads as all the cash is going into gold plated Roads of National Significance with poor cost benefit ratios.

To veer off topic slightly. As a provincial yokel who likes nothing better that leaning on the bar at the Plough and Chequebook sounding off about those 'Dorklanders' you may be surprised to learn I support the building of the CRL rail tunnel in Auckland. Why; because it offers the best bang for buck easing congestion in Auckland, freeing up money that would have otherwise been spent on motorways for needed repairs to rural roads.

Obsequious hypocrite

Scott3

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#1336109 2-Jul-2015 22:45

I think we could well justify 4 lane + median barrier standard on:

SH1 from Auckland to Hamilton: Two big cities 1.5hr drive from each other. No train service (except northern explorer once every two days) I think we should fix this with a 160kmph hourly service, but this thread is about State Highways. Only 2 flights a weekday. Terrain is pretty road friendly too.

SH2 between the Auckland express-way, and at least the coromandel turnoff/roundabout. Road carries massive traffic volume, and has bad accident record, despite being a pretty good road. recently dropped speed limit could be lifted for trip time savings with 4 laning/ median barrier. Terrain is pretty easy to build roads.

Other Upgrades:

SH1 Warkworth Bypass - could remove massive choke point from SH1 north, significant delay savings

SH1 Safety upgrades dome valley, i.e. median barrier, many more passing lanes (terrain makes it far to expensive to go for a 4 lane, 120kmph design speed through here.

Increase general maintenance on SH network (and local roads) - give back the maintenance money that was sucked out of the system to fund the RONS.

110kmph speed limit on 4 lane roads with median barrier, and deign speed of 110kmph or better.

Specify minimum power to weight ratio for trucks, no more following a truck at 15kmph up a hill.

Scrap:

Puhoi to Welsford. Terrain is super difficult making this road really expensive, hence causing the (independently evaluated)cost to benift ratio to be well below one (break even). Take the lower hanging fruit first....
- if the goal is to 4 lane to Whangarei, look at this as a project, and evaluate if the economics add up as an entire project. I would guess a route up the west side of the countriy nearer the rail line might be a lot cheaper than going near Omaha beach etc.

Transmission gully - super expensive due to terrain, loss making (independently evaluated) cost befit ratio.

Other Notes

NZ traffic has been pretty steady (despite growing population):

NZ Road vehicle kilometres travelled (Billion's of Km)

Source: Ministry of Transport

This data seems to consistent with other devolved nations, where KM per capita is generally trending down, and Total KM is generally fairly steady or downward trending, along with falling rates of driver licence holding amongst younger generations.

Current road user tax is way less than it costs to build & maintain our roading network. Rates & General taxation substantially top our roading budget. I think this should change, and the cost of roads should fall more directly on those who derive benefit from them, Particularly the trucking industry which due to road subsidies has an unfair advantage over other modes of freight such as coastal shipping.

With this in mind we, if we want better roads, with steady vehicle KM numbers we need to be prepared to pay more in tax / road user chargers. If we want to move this burden from general taxation (i.e. drop GST or income tax), and onto road users, then we need to be preprepared to pay a lot more in road user charges.

Also remember in the case of duplicate highways such as "Puhoi to Welsford", we will need to pay to keep the current SH1 open (although maintained to a lower standard), in addition to the 4 new lanes of highway, i.e. 2 lanes -> 6 lanes of maintenance cost, or roughly tipple....

Maintaining roads isn't cheap, and we should configure our network to avoid placing the burden of excessive road maintenance (given recent statistics of static traffic volumes) on future generations. I look at the USA where they are reverting (lightly used) roads back to gravel, and bridges are literally falling down due to insufficient maintenance funding. I don't want us to become like that.

mattwnz

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#1336119 2-Jul-2015 23:53

Scott3:Transmission gully - super expensive due to terrain, loss making (independently evaluated) cost befit ratio.

Other Notes

NZ traffic has been pretty steady (despite growing population):

NZ Road vehicle kilometres travelled (Billion's of Km)

Source: Ministry of Transport

This data seems to consistent with other devolved nations, where KM per capita is generally trending down, and Total KM is generally fairly steady or downward trending, along with falling rates of driver licence holding amongst younger generations.

Current road user tax is way less than it costs to build & maintain our roading network. Rates & General taxation substantially top our roading budget. I think this should change, and the cost of roads should fall more directly on those who derive benefit from them, Particularly the trucking industry which due to road subsidies has an unfair advantage over other modes of freight such as coastal shipping.

With this in mind we, if we want better roads, with steady vehicle KM numbers we need to be prepared to pay more in tax / road user chargers. If we want to move this burden from general taxation (i.e. drop GST or income tax), and onto road users, then we need to be preprepared to pay a lot more in road user charges.

Also remember in the case of duplicate highways such as "Puhoi to Welsford", we will need to pay to keep the current SH1 open (although maintained to a lower standard), in addition to the 4 new lanes of highway, i.e. 2 lanes -> 6 lanes of maintenance cost, or roughly tipple....

Maintaining roads isn't cheap, and we should configure our network to avoid placing the burden of excessive road maintenance (given recent statistics of static traffic volumes) on future generations. I look at the USA where they are reverting (lightly used) roads back to gravel, and bridges are literally falling down due to insufficient maintenance funding. I don't want us to become like that.

Transmission Gully is needed. Cost benefits are very difficult to judge, and if it saves lives, you can't put a price on someones lives. I avoid driving the millennium highway because it is such a dangerous road.. The money they spent on the World Cup rugby apparently was a loss after all the money was spent upgrading stadium, so cost benefits aren't always looked at. When TG was priced around 5 years ago it was price at about 1 billion. I can see with OSH and compliance costs, it will end up being triple that now. But at 1 billion it would be a bargain compared to the cost of some of these projects in Auckland. That underground, which they have priced at about 3 billion, and only seems to do a small circuit, I think will be a bit of a white elephant. The tram they setup wasn't exactly a success, so I don't think you can trust councils to plan these things.

ScuL

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#1336120 2-Jul-2015 23:57

I will raise again (as I have done many times) that NZ needs more 2 + 1 roads.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2%2B1_road

It's a cheap upgrade from single file State Highways, but has so many more advantages:
* segregation by barrier
* passing lanes to improve flow on uphill sections / to get around trucks and slow vehicles
* cheap to build (far cheaper than 2x2) and easy to convert from 1x1
* limited space required
* limited cost to maintain

Many European countries with low population density use this intermediate solution (highly popular in Scandinavia) and it works exceptionally well.

(and of course I mean these should exist for long and continuous stretches, not the odd 3km here or there up hill)

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Lias

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#1337792 6-Jul-2015 12:42

mattwnz:

Transmission Gully is needed.

+1 million. The Pukerua Bay to Paekakariki section of Centennial Highway/SH1 is basically unchanged from when it was built ~75 years ago. It's prone to flooding, slips, winding, not to mention only being two narrowish lanes. It's not just Transmission Gully thou, they need to put in the proposed Petone to Granada motorway and upgrade Haywards as well.

We only have to look back a month or two ago where due to floods/slips the only practical way to get from Wellington to Kapiti was Wellington -> Porirua -> Haywards -> Upper Hutt -> Masterton -> Palmerston North -> Kapiti which is sodding ridiculous.

For anyone not close to a map, that's what should be a 45 minute / 55km trip being a 4-6 hour / 300km trip.

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MikeAqua

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#1337974 6-Jul-2015 15:51

The trouble is that congestion on a 1 section feeds back into a 2 section, so it is really no better off when busy. 2+2 is much better in this regard.

ScuL: I will raise again (as I have done many times) that NZ needs more 2 + 1 roads.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2%2B1_road

It's a cheap upgrade from single file State Highways, but has so many more advantages:
* segregation by barrier
* passing lanes to improve flow on uphill sections / to get around trucks and slow vehicles
* cheap to build (far cheaper than 2x2) and easy to convert from 1x1
* limited space required
* limited cost to maintain

Many European countries with low population density use this intermediate solution (highly popular in Scandinavia) and it works exceptionally well.

(and of course I mean these should exist for long and continuous stretches, not the odd 3km here or there up hill)

Mike

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