Queen's Birthday weekend traffic - Wellington

Transit New Zealand
Wellington Regional Office

MEDIA RELEASE
1 June 2005

Queen's Birthday weekend traffic - Wellington region

Transit New Zealand and the New Zealand Police are encouraging motorists to travel with care and pay attention to the road over Queen's Birthday weekend, especially during the expected peak time between Friday evening and Saturday morning.

Transit will stop all roadwork over the holiday weekend to ensure the highways are clear and traffic can flow as freely as possible, although there will still be some sites where speed restrictions are in place where construction is already underway. These sites are clearly sign posted.

Traffic is expected to be particularly heavy on the coast road north of Paraparaumu. To help improve traffic flow, Transit is closing northbound passing lanes on State Highway 1 at Lindale and Waikanae from Friday 3 June 2005 at approximately 1.00pm until approximately noon on Saturday 4 June 2005. If traffic volumes are still heavy at this time, the lane openings will be delayed until traffic has decreased.

Transit regional network operations manager Kevin Locke says closing the passing lanes allows 100 to 150 additional vehicles to pass through each hour at these peak times and Transit will be closely monitoring the lane closures to ensure they remain effective.

"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," he said.

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

Kapiti Police head, Senior Sergeant Macmillan asks motorists to be patient and take extra care so that they get to their destination safely and enjoy the holiday break.

ENDS

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