Queenstown has reached a “tipping point”, as traffic congestion causes frustration levels to reach boiling point for commuters, a resident says. And it appears any fix is potentially years away. This week, Jack’s Point and Hanley’s Farm residents have reported travel times at peak periods of about 90 minutes between the southern corridor and Queenstown’s CBD — and vice-versa — a journey of about 16km. At times it has taken an hour just to travel the 9km to Frankton in the mornings, while some residents have waited almost 30 minutes just to get on to State Highway 6 from Hanley’s Farm. But when future residential developments are factored in, there are fears the state highway network around Queenstown will come to a standstill. Under way in the southern corridor are the Park Ridge subdivision, which envisages a total of about 522 residential lots and neighbouring Woolbrae to include 271 sections. Earlier this year, RCL Homestead Bay Ltd was given fast-track approval for its development just south of Jack’s Point, where another 2800 homes are planned. Additionally, Kingston Village Ltd — which is selling its first stage of 217 sections behind the existing township — had zoning approval for about 750, but recently announced a proposal to increase that to 1500. Meanwhile, the two-lane Kawarau Falls Bridge, opened in May 2018, was expected to reach its morning-time capacity next year, after which a second river crossing would be needed to connect the area to Frankton. NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) system design regional manager Richard Osborne said the agency was preparing a “Strategic Network Plan” for Queenstown to identify a 30-year programme of “interventions” to address capacity issues caused by growth. “Any recommended changes . . . will be subject to funding and prioritisation in future cycles of the National Lake Transport Programme.” Improvements to SH6 south of Kawarau Falls were likely to be delivered through a combination of public and private funding as development continued, he said. “NZTA is working with developers on what that may look like.” Jack’s Point resident Guy Hughes sent an open letter to Housing, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Chris Bishop on Wednesday, in which he said if the number of residential units in the Wakatipu were doubled, the existing roading infrastructure needed to be more than doubled and a new bridge was required over the Kawarau River. “With this, the increase in houses may be able to be accommodated. “Without it, there is no show.” Mr Hughes told the Otago Daily Times he posted the letter on social media and it had attracted about 500 comments, “so there is a massive groundswell going on”. “There is real anger, real frustration. “People are swearing their heads off. “They’ve long talked about cooking of the golden goose . . . it just seems like we have hit the tipping point. “As someone said, we’ve sleepwalked into this for years and, suddenly, the day has actually arrived and we’re stuffed.” Mr Hughes had lived at Jack’s Point for six years and said congestion was now the worst he had seen. “Things were just a kilometre or two worse, in terms of the queue [on SH6] . . . there were cars queuing on the Kingston side of the Jack’s Point turn-off for the first time.” He was frustrated thousands more homes were being approved, all of which would connect “to the one skinny road from Arrow Junction to the Devil’s Staircase”, without any increase in capacity for the two-lane highway. “There is no consideration for the fact that if you double the number of houses on an already overwhelmed road, you need to double the size of the road.” He suggested it may cost about $1 billion to four-lane SH6 from the Nevis Bluff to, potentially, the Devil’s Staircase. While that was “a big number . . . they’ve actually just spent a quarter of that on a roundabout that’s not going to have any impact, really, on anyone or anything.” tracey.roxburgh@odt.co.nz
