Heavy traffic expected tomorrow

Traffic is expected to be heavy again tomorrow in the build-up to New Year's Eve, with holidaymakers queuing on routes out of Auckland today..

Transport Agency congestion predictions bore out as traffic reached a peak around noon on the Northern Gateway toll road and the Thames turnoff from State Highway 1 at the southern end of the Bombay Hills.

CCTV cameras showed queues at that intersection and from the Hibiscus Coast Highway to State Highway 1, where ramp signals held up campervans and other vehicles waiting to join northbound traffic emerging from the toll road's Johnstones Hill tunnel.

The Transport Agency warned drivers of "significant delays" at the Thames turnoff.

With the holiday road toll standing yesterday afternoon at three deaths since Christmas Eve, the same as at this time last summer, an agency spokeswoman appealed for drivers to allow plenty of time for journeys "so they don't get impatient".

"When they get impatient, that's when they make bad decisions," she said.

The agency predicts heavy flows from Auckland to Northland, the Waikato and Bay of Plenty again tomorrow.

It advises holiday-makers to avoid the heaviest periods, such as from 10am to 1pm on both the Puhoi-Wellsford section of State Highway 1 and eastbound along State Highway 2 through Maramarua to the Coromandel Peninsula and Tauranga.

Those heading south to Hamilton and beyond should avoid peak travel from 10.30am to 12.30pm.

Traffic is likely - based on a Transport Agency's study of previous summer holiday travel patterns - to be heavy between Paeroa and Tauranga via the Karangahake Gorge, particularly over the four hours from 11am.

Congestion is expected to continue on the main road north from Auckland every day this week, and in the opposite direction from Friday until about 6.30pm on Monday, the final public holiday of the Christmas-New Year period.

The Transport Agency is repeating its standard advice to holidaymakers - who will include those heading for the three-day Northern Bass festival near Mangawhai from Tuesday until New Year's Eve - to consider the alternative route from Auckland along State Highway 16 via Helensville.

Westbound traffic heading back to Auckland through Maramarua after New Year's Day is likely to be heavy during most daylight hours from about 11am on Saturday until the following Tuesday evening, even after many offices reopen from the holidays.

Solid traffic flows are predicted every day for the next week on the South Island's most popular holiday run, from Cromwell to Queenstown via tate Highway 6, and in the opposite direction from New Year's Day until late on Monday.

The road toll followed a crash in which two people were killed on State Highway 1 near Tokoroa yesterday, and a three-car smash in which one person died on the highway at Oakleigh south of Whangarei on Christmas Day.

Police attended two separate crashes on State Highway 1 about 7km south of Oakleigh early this afternoon, each involving a car in collision with a truck and only about 1km apart. Two injured occupants of a car reported to police as having crossed the highway's centre-line at its intersection with Cotton Rd were taken to Whangarei Base Hospital by ambulance.

No one was reported hurt in the second collision, further south, between a car and a petrol tanker.

The police reported traffic flowing past both crash sites.

- Mathew Dearnaley and NZME

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