Transit New Zealand
Wellington Regional Office

4 April 2007

Passing lane closures on SH1 at Easter

Transit New Zealand and the NZ Police are urging motorists to take special care on the roads over the Easter weekend.

Traffic is expected to be very heavy on the roads out of Wellington over this particular weekend, especially on 6 and 7 April.

To help improve traffic flow, the northbound passing lanes on State Highway 1 at Lindale and Waikanae will be closed on Thursday 5 April at approximately midday and reopened on Saturday 7 April at approximately 4.00pm. The southbound passing lane on SH1 north of Otaki will be closed on Monday 9 April from midday until approximately 10.00pm. The start and end times of both closures may vary depending on traffic flows.

The transit lanes at Mana Esplanade will operate on their normal timetable. Motorists should continue to use the right-hand lane outside of the transit lane operating hours.

Acting operations manager Dave Robertson says closing the passing lanes allows as many as 150 additional vehicles to pass every hour at peak times.

“Detailed investigations and past experience show that when there’s a high volume of traffic and people need to merge at the end of a passing lane, they tend to push for position which slows down the flow of traffic.

“Closing the passing lanes helps increase capacity. It produces a steadier flow of single lane traffic along the highway, which is critical at long weekends.”

Mr Robertson says this type of closure is put in place routinely and proves effective in not only increasing flow but also in minimising accidents at the merge of passing lanes.

ENDS

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