What a Difference!

I usually plan my workday to avoid commuter traffic. If I spend all day in Wellington I use the trains, and I try to schedule short meetings outside rush-hour.
Wednesday was an exception. For the first time in months I've been forced to drive along the Western Hutt Road during rush-hour.
I left Oriental Bay at 5 p.m. The trip along the waterfront and the motorway to Ngauranga was typically slow but tolerable. But what a difference when I reached Petone. Gone where those infuriating Korokoro and Maungaraki queues. The traffic flowed so smoothly it felt like normal weekday traffic and far better than the madness of a typical weekend.
Congratulations to everyone involved in the Dowse to Petone upgrade. The widened road through Petone, the grade-separated interchange at Maungaraki, and the continuous median barrier have dramatically transformed the road. If commuters use the trains whenever possible, business travelers and transport operators will be able to rely on getting around Wellington Harbour without resorting to helicopters, even at peak times.
Needless to say, the job is far from complete. We desperately need new trains, otherwise commuters will start buying battery powered cars or plug-in hybrids. If that happens, we'll discover the true meaning of congestion and high electricity prices, not to mention all the greenhouse emissions associated with making all those batteries.
About a third of all the traffic that uses the Western Hutt Road is commuter traffic. That's a lot of traffic to cram into a short period at the beginning and end of each day, which is why the road gets so congested at peak times.
However, it struggles to cope with normal business-day traffic, which is the main reason it needs improving. It's never been any good and we should have made it into a motorway forty years ago.
Melling is a shambles. Belmont's b*** awful, and Kelson is chronic. We need grade separated interchanges at Kelson and Melling. We need a two-lane slip road to link the other side roads to these grade-separated interchanges and eliminate intermediate intersections. We should also extend the Melling railway to Kelson, so that it can take as much commuter traffic as possible from Lower Hutt's Western Hills.
And, as I mentioned in my previous post, we absolutely must fix the cycle road. I notice another crappy "cycle-track" is being built at Petone. We must stop wasting money on these ridiculous white elephants and do a proper job.
Before we start on any of this we should commission a traffic study of the Akatarawa Motorway to find out if we can get away with four lanes between Maungaraki and Silverstream. We might need to six-lane this section (though I suspect we'll get away with four lanes if slow drivers learn to drive in the left lane instead of driving two abreast in their three tonne diesel-hybrid SUVs).
None of this detracts from the fine effort that has gone into the Dowse Interchange. I won't say it's perfect but it's damn good, it looks to me as if the road can be widened to six-lanes if necessary, and it has eliminated some very serious congestion.