@jethrocarr asked me on Twitter:

so whats the difference between the express way and the idea of removing traffic lights etc to improve flow on the existing road?

I responded thus:

The expressway would be 4 lanes of 100K traffic from Raumati South to Otaki. Residential areas on both sides. Only 3 on/off points which will debouch onto local roading systems that are not planned to be upgraded to handle the load.
Where’s the benefit? Still going to be a dual carriage-way from Otaki north, and Paekakariki south, so everything will have to merge there (until Transmission Gully gets built for the south).

The only time the traffic is that much of a problem is peak hour and holidays, and that’s mostly due to crappy driving. Apparently, 12 minutes will be saved between Palmerston North and Wellington but many millions will be spent to achieve that.

The Coast has been built around SH1 forever. There is less disruption involved (and cost) in improving it (without carving through people’s homes) than there is in discarding it for an expressway for National’s trucking backers (IMHO, of course).

People up here spent *years* sorting out the best option for the communities and the through traffic, which is a 2 lane local road and bridge, which would take 20% of the traffic of SH1 immediately. Joyce comes along (and uses the same consultants – something odd there) to come up with his “solution” in just a few weeks. He is explicitly excluding rail from his “strategic transportation plan” of “nationally significant roads”, which reeks more than a little bit of special interests being catered for while everyone else can go whistle.
Phew!

I really, really want the community to win this one, not just because it will affect my personal quality of life, but because the process is wrong.