What is so wrong with Esmonde Road?

Written: By Ben Paul

The new Esmonde Road Interchange has missed out one important idea, fixing the bottleneck of the citybound on-ramp.

Before the Esmonde Road Interchange was upgraded it had a few flaws like no Esmonde to Akoranga Drive connection, the safety issues of the existing Akoranga link and the missing ramps to the Northern Motorway.

Sure the new Northbound on-ramp and Southbound off-ramp will relieve pressure on the Northcote interchange and surrounding roads to it, but what has been missed at Esmonde Road?

The new Esmonde Road interchange is not relieving itself of the huge problems at the Citybound on-ramp. Sure there is one section which is 8 lanes wide and will accommodate the extra traffic flow, and access to the city bound on-ramp is still only restricted to Barry’s Point and Esmonde Road. But the choke point is the city bound on-ramp.

Hopefully something will be done soon.

The citybound on-ramp or the southbound Esmonde Road on-ramp is an on-ramp that handles 25% of traffic which uses the Northern Motorway, this makes it and Onewa the busiest on-ramps on the Northern Motorway.

It serves the areas of Devonport, Takapuna, Bayswater, Hauraki, North Takapuna, Takapuna Central, and some of Milford, this is a catchment of an area that is quite large compared to others. On-ramps such as Northcote will only handle Milford, some of Forest Hill and some of Northcote. Tristram Avenue only handles Wairau and small parts of East Coast Bays.

The City Bound on-ramp also has issues where two lanes from Esmonde Road (Lake Road), two lanes from Barry’s Point, two new lanes from Fred Thomas Drive and two lanes from Burns Ave all merging, then merging to one lane, then that lane has to merge with Northern Motorway traffic. This causes traffic chaos, and not only during peak time but during the day and before peak periods even start.

The Esmonde Road on-ramp not only causes a headache for commuters that use it, it also causes most of the congestion that trails up the Northern to Greville Road on-ramp. This period of congestion also lasts the longest out of all congestion in the morning peak, extending past 10am most mornings.

The previous alignment of the citybound on-ramp was a long curved design, where two lanes merged to one over a 500m long section. This design allowed traffic to merge before it had to merge again at the motorway. The new curved design heads straight for the Northern Motorway, suddenly makes a 45° turn then only has 100m for the traffic to merge into one lane then finally merges with the motorway. This obviously causes congestion, it was inevitable so why was nothing done? The merge section of the Esmonde Road on-ramp has now been extended.

One could think that the new Esmonde Road interchange is not designed to improve traffic flow, but integrating the Busway, in which public transport is more important than private transport. But why then make connections that were not previously available and make an auxiliary lane between Esmonde and Northcote on a section that is most likely not going to be congested. Why leave the most heavily congested part of the Esmonde Road interchange alone? Or make it in some ways worse?

Adding an auxiliary lane between Esmonde Road and Onewa Interchange, this means little disruption to the lanes for the Harbour Bridge and the Onewa on-ramp. Auxiliary lanes are used in Auckland at St Marks Road, Gillies and Khyber and the new Esmonde to Northcote link.

This will extend the merge space for Esmonde Road considerably and eliminates the common get on at one and off at the next problem that occurs.

Why has nothing been done yet?

Transit New Zealand, despite council, MP and community questioning of the on-ramp has not addressed the problem of the citybound on-ramp, Saying that extra capacity on the Northern Motorway would only induce far worse congestion further ahead through the Auckland Harbour Bridge, St Mary's Bay, Victoria Viaduct and Central Motorway Junction. This theory is correct though, if traffic is cleared up at Esmonde Road, then far more traffic would get to the sections mentioned above much faster, and just congest there, this means the Northern Motorway traffic that congests back to Greville and every on-ramp along the motorway would induce more significant and problematic congestion further ahead.

Transit New Zealand will not offer any solutions to this problem until the Victoria Viaduct tunnel is complete in 2014, so congestion is not induced on the viaduct and through St Mary's Bay more than it already is.

Many people hold the view, that most people that enter the motorway at Esmonde work in the CBD and exit at Fanshawe Street, and should be taking public transport, and with the Northern Busway complete this option is becoming more attractive and easier to use. This is another reason why the Esmonde Road on-ramp is not being addressed, with a $300m development occurring right next to it why should the on-ramp problem be addressed to put private transport ahead of public transport, or is the busway the solution?

Ramp Signalling is also planned to be installed, although I support Ramp Signalling because it has proven its results, this is not the on-ramp for Ramp Signalling. Esmonde Road should not have Ramp Signalling installed because traffic congestion is already too significant for ramp signalling to work. Every morning the traffic is already backed up to the church on Esmonde Road.
Ramp Signalling only works on on-ramps that have initial small queue backs onto the roads, or no queues at all, a main reason why ramp signalling is installed is to slow down traffic entering the motorway too quickly and inducing congestion on the motorway itself. Traffic at Esmonde Road is already only moving onto the motorway at a slow speed, meaning it is already ramp signalled without the signals!

Another solution is the Third Harbour Crossing here.

Poll: Is this a problem?

Even though the interchange is nearing completion should this be fixed? This poll has closed, being run for around 10 months 2998 votes were collected with 95% in agreement that the Citybound on-ramp should be fixed.

Fix It: 95% | Do Not Fix: 5%

Tell us what you think

Comments and questions will be edited for clarity and space constraints if necessary.

Latest: From Chad | Waiting for the relief of congestion until 2014 at the Esmonde Road On-Ramp is not an option. Any of the alternatives highlighted above should be implemented sooner than later. If Transit NZ was a non-government owned enterprise whoever was responsible for the mess would be fired.

Latest: From Simon | Retaining the existing bus lane down Esmonde Rd, allowing it to flow naturally onto the Busway instead of diverting into Akoranga bus station which is pointless, and increasing the buses down Esmonde Rd from Devonport would encourage people onto buses and relieve congestion on Esmonde and Lake Rd.

Glen | If everybody use public transport there be no need to build more motorways.

Simon | Ben Paul article "What's Wrong with the New Esmonde Road Interchange?" has hit the nail on the head. This upgrade project just goes to show that NZ road designers do not have systems type thinking - that is looking at the cause and effect nature of change. His article below hits the nail on the head, and it is the reason way roading upgrades will never work - since improved links and travel times etc. just encourage more cars and hence the system ends up at the same place it was prior to any upgrade. What are you going to do about this upgrade failure? That is fixing the bottleneck of the citybound on-ramp.

From: Josh | Understandably, Takapuna and Devonport traffic won’t really get any worse than it already is as population in the area has reached its peak. I think the local council is hoping that people will just start to take the bus and the problem will go away. If we actually look back, traffic flow wasn't anywhere as bad as it is now. It now takes an extra 10-15minutes. I always have a good chuckle in the morning once I finally “wake up” out of brain dead mode coming onto the motorway and traveling along towards the bridge of how long it takes me to get to town vs. actually sitting on Esmonde road. It takes 30-40mins for the whole trip into town, 25-30minutes of it sitting on Esmonde road itself. The other major gripe, which is in my mind quite dangerous, is the new onramp’s 90 degree “it’ll do” flat cambered corner. How many of us count the number of hits the Armco [metal barrier] receives each week. Last week was a record nine new ‘bends’ in the Armco. Of course, people are traveling too fast, but it is a motorway onramp. I have a feeling all we are going to see here to fix the problem is the head in the sand approach of using concrete medium barriers instead of steel Armco.

Name: Anon. | I’ve been stuck in traffic at this interchange, and the solution is very simple, if the number of people in sole occupancy cars, about 95%, actually took the bus or at least shared a ride there would be no congestion. It’s not rocket science it’s an inevitable behavioural change for Aucklander’s.

Latest Comment: Dave | Transit spokespeople have admitted this very agenda on radio interviews. Their priority is to keep traffic moving once it is on the motorway, and thus it's necessary to 'choke' the flow of traffic on to the motorway at the pinch points. In the city, they're achieving this with their filtering traffic lights, moving the congestion off the motorway and into the side streets, then trickling the traffic on to the motorway. Seems to me the Esmonde Road city-bound on-ramp is designed to 'choke' the flow of traffic in a similar way, thus keeping the motorway moving. It works! This is great if you're already on the motorway but a total pain in the neck if you have to use Esmonde Road. However, did Transit ever explicitly state that the Esmonde Road upgrade would improve traffic flow on to the motorway?

Name: Bruce | It would seem that Transit has revealed its ''hidden'' agenda with this farce. It has become blatantly clear that policy is now geared towards creating congestion (citybound) to promote public transport use (i.e. the Northern Busway). It is bad enough that the long awaited auxiliary lane wasn't incorporated into the project but that even the merging lane hasn't been lengthened, effectively creating a day long (not just peak) bottleneck and potential accident black spot. It is fair to say I have never come across such a pitiful example of ''road improvement'' anywhere.

Name: Mark | It needs to be fixed. The extra time now added on greatly increases the cost of lost productivity of everyone that uses the on ramp and this appears to be a significant portion of the population.  It seems to be a reasonably easy thing to fix in terms of engineering and traffic flow dynamics.

Name: Chris. This morning I have made 2 attempts to use Esmonde Rd to go southbound and given up in disgust after sitting in queues backed up to Lake Rd even at midday. I deliberately left late to avoid the peak time chaos. The really annoying bit is that once one does eventually get on the motorway it is usually flowing quite freely - the only congestion is on Esmonde Rd.  I turned around and went home and have just found this site. Needless to say I am flabbergasted that there is no intention to fix the real problem. It seems like Transit are spending their time worrying about fancy murals and plantings. Is that a form of traffic calming? Well it certainly is not helping my blood pressure.

Answer from Ben: Good and true comments, but the murals and urban design you see on the motorways are at a very small cost to the taxpayer and has positive effects.

From: Wayne D. I am wondering whether the Esmonde Road interchange development will have any effect in reducing the bottleneck of city-bound traffic in the mornings. The road layout seems to only include a single lane on-ramp, which means there will be no benefit for southbound traffic. Is that the plan for the final layout? Furthermore, the fact that northbound motorway traffic will be able to access the motorway from Esmonde Road would seem to only increase the amount of traffic down Esmonde Road with the net result of the work being even longer travel times. I might add that I would prefer to take public transport and thus reduce pressures on the roads, but given that it takes even longer to get from Bayswater to Mt Albert by public transport, and costs about $12 per day, I am forced back onto the road!

From: Selwyn. Having spent the last year experiencing traffic congestion around Esmonde Rd, I had hoped that the realignment would do something to remove the major bottleneck caused when four Lanes (Two from Devonport, two from Barry’s Pt) merge to a single Lane on the Southbound motorway. Now I am shocked to see that we will still have the same situation when the work is completed. We have two Lanes going to Akoranga Dr/Northern Motorway and still just a single Lane southbound which is where 90% of the traffic goes. Were traffic volumes not even considered when the plan was created and millions of dollars spent?

From: Brian. Of course it’s a problem.  It is not helped by the fact that the council have not given much publicity to how public transport is going to be integrated.  Are all the buses currently finishing in central Takapuna going to be switched to the Esmonde Road bus station?  If so how are the passengers going to get into central Takapuna.  If not shall we have shuttle buses to do that job?  The interchange has been a figment of a car driving transport managers imagination (working in Albany) that has unfortunately been transferred to concrete and tarmac.  Any sane transport engineer would have had at least two lanes onto the motorway southbound as well as the bus lane.  The current situation is ludicrous.   This happened in the UK when London based designers decided that the M54/M5 interchange would be south only.  They couldn't conceive that anyone would want to use the M54 and go north!!!  The consequence was a vast amount of motorway! Traffic coming east along the M54 was forced onto rural roads for up to 20km if they wanted to end up in the north of England - which many of them did.

Name: Clive. Why has the chronic Esmonde Rd/Barry’s Pt Rd congestion not been addressed in the current multi-million dollar motorway 'improvement'? I have put up with increasing delays over 25yrs and am disgusted the real issue is not addressed.

From: Mike. I don't see why they should fix it, they have wasted enough money already. In all honesty if they put petrol prices up to the high levels of a few months ago it will cut back the traffic. I travel from Milford to Onehunga everyday and yes the getting on the motorway is the worst part of the trip. I was amazed how many people took to the buses or car-pooled when fuel reached its highest price which goes to show that the bus is only tempting at a certain price in comparison to the cost of fuel. If the bus prices fluctuated to stay at that perfect % to make it worthwhile then it would solve a lot of the congestion issues.

From: Elaine. I am amazed that Barry's Point rd has not been made one way during all these renovations.  It is such a clogged road with motorway traffic and local business traffic making it incredibly dangerous and very difficult to use the local businesses. Turning in and out is a nightmare. Maybe Fred  Thomas Drive should be only a one-way  off road from the motorway, that would carry northern traffic to the suburbs and around the top and back down for people doing business in Barry’s Point Rd.  Traffic coming from Devonport etc could come down Esmonde and turn right on lights into Fred Thomas if wanting to access Barry's Pt Rd.  There seems to be a plethora of lights appearing down there now so I'm sure the traffic planners could work that out.  Those of us coming from the south will soon get used to going around the block. 
With glee actually as Barry's Pt is such a nightmare as it is.  Hope these are useful comments. I agree with [Ben Paul] about the single lane , short feed to the motorway - unbelievable for $5 million!!

Name: Keith. I agree there is time to make the alternations to assist the traffic going to the city by extending the lane to Northcote. Moreover why did they not put under-passes to allow right turning traffic into Barry Point and Akoranga drive taking away the traffic light situation for city traffic coming up Esmonde.

Name: Chris. The points raised on this website are entirely valid and make a lot of sense. As a daily commuter who utilises the city bound Esmonde Road on-ramp it frustrates me to see all this work taking place yet none of it is addressing the PRIMARY problem, that of congestion on the city bound Esmonde Road On-ramp.  If anything it will only exacerbate the problem once the work is complete. Surely it makes total sense to create an Auxiliary lane or full lane to facilitate merging with traffic already on the motorway? (After all one has been implemented northbound even though the chance of traffic congestion being caused by the north-bound on-ramp is remote).  Not only would this help ease the Esmonde Road on-ramp bottle-neck but it would also help reduce the bottle-neck created on the city bound motorway itself by traffic from the on-ramp trying to merge with motorway traffic.  The end result would be smoother- freer flowing traffic for all concerned. One can only assume that the people who devised the 'new' Esmonde Road plan don't use the interchange on a regular basis.  Otherwise the above would have been patently obvious. To highlight how extreme this problem is one only needs to look at the miles of traffic that does, on occasion, extend all the way back to the Esmonde Road / Lake Road intersection on a Friday evening when all peak hour traffic is actually going the other way!  This is a serious problem and the opportunity to address it is NOW.  Failing that I would like an official explanation as to why the above is not feasible or possible.

Name: Paul. The lack of at least an 'auxiliary' lane from the Esmonde Road on-ramp through to Onewa Road is the most glaring error of planning: the Esmonde Road on-ramp is a frustrating choke-point that has become far worse, with the new 'improvements' and is a significant contributor to driver frustration (is a wholly unpredictable journey time), as well as a preventable contributor to greenhouse gases/localised air pollution. It is as if the planners (or the Approvers!) dreamt this scheme in isolation or in defiance of the facts! One only has to look at international environments where observation, evaluation, imagination and engineering have created workable solutions (the U.S.A. being the premier example, in many cases, with Germany a close second). Unfortunately, the driving of massive timber piles against the Oceanside edge of the motorway now seems to have doomed any hope for an auxiliary lane?

Name: Sarah. I am in sales and I drive around all day.  Whenever I use this onramp to the city it is ALWAYS 'choked.'  DOesn't mater what time of the day I am using it.

Name: Steve. it has made the situation MUCH worse and looks like it will only get more so. On the angle of the Esmonde road on ramp, which makes that hard 45 degree turn. There has obviously already been an accident where someone has been traveling that corner to fast and gone into the barrier. I can tell you it certainly wouldn't have been from 6 - 10am in the morning.

Name: Strat. Shall we see if it works before we bag it ??? You could always use alternate transport, change work times, ferry, bus..... It is a big city and traffic is always going to be a headache. You could have a 20 lane wide motorway, there will always be "choke points". At least something is being done. How many will be in your car tomorrow at rush hour??? Yes you reader.....

Answer: "Before we bag it..." is obvious, its been happening for around 15 years plus.

Name: Jocelyn. While so much money is being spent, and the motorway is undergoing major changes known bottlenecks should be fixed at the same time rather than in five years time. The bottlenecks will get worse not better.

Name: Bruce. When the new construction was started I and I'm sure most users of this motorway on-ramp were of the opinion that the huge build up and congestion of traffic heading towards the city from Esmonde road would have been corrected. Since the on-ramp has opened the traffic congestion has got worse. This is not good enough. Free flow??