Recent traffic chaos in the Tasman District shows how vulnerable the local transport system is to congestion.
A woman was seriously injured after a crash last Thursday afternoon on State Highway 6 (SH6), in Richmond. She was trapped in a van after the accident also involving a truck and a car. Police say that enquiries into the cause of the accident are ongoing.
A section of SH6 in Richmond was blocked from 3:15pm and reopened about 4:40pm. It was the cause of heavy traffic and placed the local network under stress.
In Wakefield, resurfacing created the same problem.
NZTA says those incidents bring light to the transit issues faced by our community.
“The sheer volume of traffic far exceeded the capacity of the alternative roads and intersections to accommodate it, especially as most traffic is funnelled through a couple of key intersections,” says Tasman District Council (TDC) transport manager Jamie McPherson.
“It shows how critical an effective, safe and resilient arterial state highway system is to our community.”
Jamie says that the council supports NZTA in its planning for improvements such as a bypass for SH6 at Richmond.
“Gridlock can occur very quickly at peak times with even a minor change to normal traffic patterns, let alone a complete closure of the key arterial of SH6. As we saw, it takes a long time for the gridlock and congestion to relieve itself even after roads are reopened, as traffic has already committed to other roads that are not designed to deal with those very high flows.”
The TDC is encouraging NZTA to consider other things like upstream permanent electronic signs that could have informed road users very quickly about the closure and recommended detours, which would be faster and more effective than trying to establish contractors to put up temporary signs. “As traffic grows, and funding is not yet available for major upgrades or bypasses, we need to look at what improvements can be made to get better efficiency out of the network we have,” says Jamie.
Roger Ashworth, maintenance contract manager NZTA, says that given the potential for serious injury, the Police Serious Crash Unit was called to the site of the Thursday crash as soon as it happened. The busy school hours, trapping the van driver, blocking the northbound lanes of SH6 south of the Richmond deviation roundabout were all reasons pointed out for the delay.
“Our traffic teams offer advice and in fact, they were diverting traffic as soon as the crash happened and had a detour route established by 4 pm with the Police,” he says.
Northbound traffic was directed right onto Oxford Street, left onto Salisbury Road, left onto Richmond Deviation, right onto SH6. Reverse for southbound traffic. The highway was fully reopened by 5 pm once the van driver had been safely freed and transferred to the hospital.
“Given the large numbers of vehicles travelling north between 3 and 5pm, and combining two streams of traffic onto one local road route for close to two hours, there was no way of avoiding a lot of traffic slowed down by this highway crash. There is no other route available to use apart from Salisbury Road,” says Roger.
“Whilst we regret any delays when crashes occur, other people using the highway may well be delayed. We encourage people to drive safely at all times,” he says.
Roger says that Wednesday’s delays in Wakefield were also monitored throughout and at most were up to 15 minutes.“The work was part of our regular summer maintenance programme – resurfacing the highway and there were electronic boards located strategically to inform road users to expect delays which were in place for two weeks prior to this work.” Information was also distributed via a letter drop to nearby residents and was available via the Transport Agency’s website.
“This work, for safety and quality reasons, has to be done in daytime hours. Reseals are continuing throughout Tasman area over the summer and crews will continue to do their best to minimise disruptions but also to warn people in advance where some delays are inevitable.”