Tauranga residents are reporting traffic mayhem in the city as people battle to get to work and school this morning.
One resident, who did not want to be named, said it took her at least 20 minutes to get out of Ohauiti Rd.
“And that was just from the bus stop down past the garden centre.
“Cars were leaving the line and turning around to try an alternative route.”
Traffic backed up on Poike Rd this morning. Photo / Alison Todd
The resident said traffic was backed up on SH29a coming from the Ōropi end of the highway.
Other commuters said the road was backed up from around the Oropi Rd roundabout to Baypark.
More to come.
Traffic delays on SH29a in Tauranga this morning. Image / Google Maps
7 comments
Roadworks
Posted on 30-04-2026 11:20 | By Captain Hottie
Nearly midday and it's still chaos on SH29 from Welcome Bay roundabout to Barkes Corner. The only explanation is shutting Oropi Road for roadworks, leading to huge tailbacks to detour. Why was this work not done at the weekend??
Morning traffic commute
Posted on 30-04-2026 12:18 | By Angel74
Is ugly every morning so hate think how bad it was this morning use to take about half hour from ohauiti to greerton and that was over six years ago .......
Well well….
Posted on 30-04-2026 13:56 | By Shadow1
…we should have expected this, it’s what happens when we allow housing to grow exponentially. The existing road system was designed to carry many fewer vehicles than at present.
What have we done to fix this? Well we’ve spent a bit of time moaning about it, we’ve blamed previous councils, we’ve tried to get commuters into buses. None of that helped did it?
Greerton has become the developer’s dream. Three or more three story houses on every section is their goal and boy are they getting on with it.
So there you go, three times as many people in Greerton, three times the amount of sewerage, grey water and storm water (three times the roof area). How will the water infrastructure cope? It won’t. The roads aren’t coping already. Just saying.
Shadow1.
road repairs
Posted on 30-04-2026 17:14 | By peter pan
Work must be done overnight .
Light rail
Posted on 30-04-2026 17:58 | By Fred Bear
Where are the light rail corridors ?
Wow
Posted on 30-04-2026 18:29 | By gingerpussy
No surprises here...before more people congregate to Tauranga the infrastructure needs to be fixed to accommodate the traffic flow. Instead all we see are orange cones growing everywhere and taking so long to get things done...
this is getting pretty serious!!!
Posted on 30-04-2026 18:42 | By Watchdog
Maybe we can have staggered work times which might offer some assistance. Maybe we can have island flow where 4 lanes become one way for three lanes and one other lane goes the other way in traffic flow.
Maybe some traffic needs to be split. For example going through Greerton traffic coming out of teh city could be diverted to Fraser Street around the shops and down to oropi roundabout. With the two lanes through Greerton both going the same way. But do NOT take away teh parking in Greerton Village. This will cause a very strong reaction from the locals. I talked to a few today and they were very despondent about whether Council will actually listen to them.
Underpass or overpass maybe?
Definitely need an undrpass at Barkes Corner for traffic coming up the hill either side.
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