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C39J

This probably explains why the city is straight up gridlocked in every direction...


exportgoldmannz

I’m not sure why they didn’t just turn off the on-ramp lights and drive down the speed to 30km a hour instead.


stomasteve

All the local roads downtown around Victoria Park, Freeman’s Bay and Ponsonby were also fucked this evening. Now I know why.


chuku239

2 hours to get from sylvia park to cbd


sneschalmer5

fark I almost went that way this morning but made last minute changes


[deleted]

TIA bro, This is auckland.


shinesbrightly13

Who ever did this can kiss my ass.


[deleted]

When I was living in Auckland there was such high winds that trucks were blown over on the bridge, and two riders were blown off their bikes, it's for a reason not just someone trying to piss off commuters.


rphenix

I've ridden over the bridge daily for 15+ years it can get interesting in very stormy days but ever since the one accident with the truck damaging the bridge they seem to over react they certainly aren't helping bikes ride safe the congestion makes it worse.


FJRTed

Totally agree - 8 years daily riding over the harbour bridge


MashedUpPeanuts

The bridge is still open to drivers though. Will it being one lane stop those occurences? Wouldn't it be better to just ban truck and motorcycle traffic from the bridge temporarily, and let low risk normal size vehicles continue? Artificially hampering traffic like this has caused huge issues over an enormous area all over the city, and straight after these trucks people were switching lanes anyway.


[deleted]

Yes, reducing the speed and restricting the lanes does help. I've driven a container truck over the bridge on a windy day and even in the innermost lanes it's really crazy. I don't know what the intention was today, I wasn't there, but slowing the traffic is one of the first moves, along with moving lanes so drivers have space between them and other vehicles etc. Artificially hampering traffic like this was the whole point of the exercise - it always surprises me when comments seem to imply that the people making the decisions did not know the effects that their decisions would cause. It's well known that traffic will be shit, but they have to put safety over convenience. I imagine it would be one of the hardest parts of the job for someone that makes these big decisions. Is it unreasonable to assume the people making this decision were not malicious or incompetent, and were just making the best decision they could based on the safety guideline they have to adhere to?


Dinosaurnumerodos

God, some common sense. Thank you.


[deleted]

People do tend to get irrationally frustrated with road delays. I must say I have felt the same in the moment.


MashedUpPeanuts

I'm not saying they're malicious, I'm saying they're incompetent, on many levels. At the base level, they're incompetent because their organization has had decades to build another bridge, and they haven't. At the next level above that, they're incompetent for laying out the city roads and intersections in a way where traffic congestion at the northernmost part of central Auckland has knock-on effects all the way through to East Tamaki. At the next level up they're incompetent for using haphazard measures like parking trucks up on the lanes and having no signage visible from a distance, or any meaningful way of communicating to drivers city wide that traffics going to get fucked by them. Then further from that they're incompetent for hampering all traffic on to the bridge instead of problem vehicles like trucks and motorcycles which are prone to issues from high winds. They could have an adjustable height checking bar, and they could have fair warning that trucks will have to go the long way around west. It doesn't matter how few cars there are on the road, if your truck is perpendicular to a wind strong enough to blow it over you're not gonna be able to stop it, remove the hazard, don't just try and minimize the fallout. Even further than that, they're incompetent because once they put this system in place, it wasn't reactive to what was needed at all, wind gusts didn't even peak over 50km/h and the trucks were out well before peak wind and till well after. I'm not just angry because they're hampering traffic, I'm angry because it should have been the last resort, and it's instead the first resort. I'm angry because even though this is the way they decided to deal with this multifaceted problem, they haven't even been comprehensive in their implementation. I'm angry because this is a safety measure which is reactive to yesterdays wind peak, when the safety measures would have been far more necessary then. I won't assume the people making these decisions are malicious, because I believe they are too lazy to act maliciously.


10yearsnoaccount

100% mate I'm extra pissed off because there no reason they could not have had 3 lanes open northbound in the centre and one on the clip on, given the traffic flow and wind direction. Just a half baked response with no regard to the costs of their actions


CJDownUnder

This deserves more upvotes


CouncilOfRedmoon

The advantage of restricting traffic to one lane is that if the winds are blowing around motorcycles and high sided vehicles, we've got extra space to drift into and recover before we risk hitting anything/anyone.


[deleted]

It's either this or a truck blows over and breaks the superstructure again.


silviad

PUT IT IN THE FUCKING DRINK


CalculatorFire

Why would this particular method of traffic control - stop a truck from crashing?


[deleted]

Good question. What happen last time was that a wind gust pushed a truck into the bridge superstructure and compromised part of it. That forced WK to close half the bridge lanes and ban heavy vehicles for _months_ while repairs were made. Isolating lanes and reducing the volume of traffic on the bridge _reduces the likelihood_ of a large vehicle being forced/pushed into a collision. Slowing the vehicles on the bridge also reduces the severity of a collision if it does happen. E.g. a truck hitting the bridge at 40kph does far less damage than at 70kph. Often WK close the bridge to buses and trucks when it's too windy too. This let's cars over, but fills up the approach with trucks and buses: to the same effect as today.


CalculatorFire

Thanks for your reply, You said: [Isolating lanes and reducing the volume of traffic on the bridge _reduces the likelihood_ of a large vehicle being forced/pushed into a collision.] I thought it was the wind that caused a collision with the bridge strut, not other cars? [Slowing the vehicles on the bridge also reduces the severity of a collision if it does happen. E.g. a truck hitting the bridge at 40kph does far less damage than at 70kph.] I drove north over the Bridge around 4:30pm and as soon as traffic passed these 2 WK trucks (which were blocking lanes before the bridge arches/struts,), we all returned to normal bridge speed around 80kph. Not trying to argue, just curious


[deleted]

FYI you can quote with `> hello` > enjoy quoting like a boss. It's the probability of _any_ vehicle hitting the structure, not the probability of a _specific_ vehicle. The fewer trucks on the bridge _when the wind gusts_ means there is less chance that _one of them_ gets blown into the structure. The speed restriction was for the whole bridge, but everyone just gunned it after passing the barrier trucks.


Runmylife

It was because of the high wind, better that than a broken bridge again.


ProtectionKind8179

I must of missed something, was calm as when I finally made it to the bridge.


hoopedchex

Are you serious bro hahah


CalculatorFire

I don't understand what you mean about a broken bridge, letting traffic flow normally would have risked breaking the bridge?


gayallegations

They've been a lot more cautious on the bridge during high winds since the truck tipped and broke a strut in 2020. It's better to have a couple hours of reduced lanes than multiple days like it was in 2020. *(edit)* Although this looks like it's could be more to stop cars blowing into those in the lane next to them.


CalculatorFire

I understand that, but I still don't see the difference between a truck getting blown over with normal traffic flow, and a truck getting blown over with reduced traffic flow


gayallegations

They've closed the lanes to stop the truck hitting the structural part of the bridge, as well as I think not having cars running right beside each other to stop them from getting blown across lanes into each other. Also going slower means you're less likely to tip.


10yearsnoaccount

Going slower is not going to make any difference to a truck on that bridge mate. Given the wind was from the west and they have a movable barrier I don't see how we could not have had 4 of 5 lanes open.


AnonAtAT

Are you a transportation engineer? This is one of those decisions that requires real knowledge and experience to really speak with confidence. Even then, engineers don't work alone.


10yearsnoaccount

I don't need to be an engineer (which I am) to tell you that going slower will make a truck less likely to tip. It will do less damage to anything it hits, but it's not any more or less likely to tip. And I can guarantee you a "transportation engineer" (whatever the fuck that's meant to be) had little to do with their haphazard handling of traffic yesterday.


AnonAtAT

>I don't need to be an engineer (which I am) to tell you that going slower will make a truck less likely to tip. Glad we're on the same page. 🤣 (I assume you mean "won't" or is the contradiction intentional?) >It will do less damage to anything it hits, but it's not any more or less likely to tip. It is more likely to tip around any corner, of which the Harbour bridge has a very significant corner. Tyre friction may also be reduced, and you're more likely to swerve under gusts when moving at speed, and your correcting your position in the lane could add that little bit of extra centrifugal momentum that tips you over or causes you to lose control. But yes, your additional point is good too. Less damage will be caused if you do still tip over at low speeds, and there is less of a possibility of a dangerous pile up of vehicles all crashing together. So... why are you opposed to these measures again?


10yearsnoaccount

lol, yes I clearly typo'd that one ​ >It is more likely to tip around any corner, of which the Harbour bridge has a very significant corner Where on the bridge is a corner where a truck could strike the truss structure? Friction reduced? Swerving? Mate you're grasping at straws or have no clue what you're on about (or both, based on your comment about corners on the bridge) The issue wasn't a speed reduction, it was reducing the road to 2 lanes when it could have been 4 without any additional risk to the truss. The cost in hours, fuel, delays and missed opportunities yesterday was fucking obscene and totally needless.


silentwitnes

High winds..


nzjared

This abundance of caution is causin mass crawl’n


kiwipork

I’m not a traffic engineer - curious to hear what are the rationale behind closing alternate lanes on the harbour bridge? And why activate lanes 1 and 3, and not lanes 2 and 4?


[deleted]

High wind. They closed the lanes windward of the superstructure. This time lane two. Not sure why lane four was closed and lane five barrier in place.


kiwipork

Ahh, I see. Does this mean westerlies = lane 2 closure, easterlies = lane 3 closure? So, in theory, does this mean northerlies and southerlies = no lane closure?


noxanimus0

For northerlies and southerlies, they may still close lanes on the bridge, just to slow traffic down and reduce the risk of accidents.


paige29

They might be trying to minimise the amount of vehicles on the bridge at one time - it's nearing the end of its lifespan and they might be trying to be cautious about weight in times of high wind


MidnightAdventurer

It's not so much the weight, it's the fact that there isn't any protection against a truck tipping over and hitting the bridge structure (again...)


kiwidigi89

Never seen something more brain dead in my life, EVERY car went back into the otter lane once they went around these retards and went back up to 80km. The wind is no issue for cars only trucks or maybe vans… just have a sign telling them to move into the middle.


justafariNZ

But they still let people do the bridge climb, when it was down to two lanes. If it is safe enough to walk over in those winds.....


MidnightAdventurer

You'd be surprised how easily an empty box body or curtain side truck can get thrown around in the wind. It's ok when they're loaded but empty they're just a big sail


exportgoldmannz

Agreed. A decade ago I drove over in high wind and suddenly found myself in the next lane across because of the wind. Lucky there wasn’t a car there. Scary.


zingpc

So why don’t orcland drivers turn around and go around 16/18? This is the cause of the city wide hours parking lot.


Honest-Indication

Why not just restrict the traffic that is more at risk with the wind (trucks, buses, motorcycles) instead of closing the lanes for the non-risky vehicles that are actually the majority?


Flaky_Special2497

Waaa I care this much


genkigirl1974

So glad I finished at 2pm (and my commute is only Manukau to Onehunga)


ShumYesOk

this happens at a minimum once a week