A one-page flyer has appeared in my mailbox from the New Zealand Transport Agency with the stunning news that the need to 'address” traffic congestion at the Maungatapu/Hairini roundabouts has been 'recognised”.

Furthermore, an 18-month investigation has identified an underpass to Welcome Bay as the best solution.

The time taken by presumed experts to reach this conclusion is truely breathtaking.
Local residents would have required at least 18 seconds make a similar finding.

Indeed, many unqualified members of the public did that more than a decade ago, as the scale of development in Welcome Bay became apparent.

Instead, we've been inconvenienced for years by traffic jams, and then for months during installation of the amazing Scottish traffic light complex, which has never achieved the smooth traffic flows promised. The long, rush-hour tail-backs can at times reach 15th Ave and the Poike Rd roundabout. Intriguingly, the pretty little diagram on the flyer studiously ignores the real elephant in the room, which is of course the Turret Rd bridge.

One hopes it will not require another costly 18-month study by experts to appreciate that five lanes of traffic - Welcome Bay, Ohauiti, SH 29 both ways and Maungatapu - simply don't fit into one-lane across the bridge.

Some older residents of the city will remember at the time the existing dual roundabouts were designed more than 30 years ago, provision was made for an underpass.

The space between the twin ramps from Turret Rd to Maungatapu was designed as the approach to the underpass, not the small plantation there today.

D H Blanshard, Welcome Bay.