6 Mar 2017

March Madness and electric vehicle trial

From Afternoons, 1:14 pm on 6 March 2017

March Madness is in full-swing in Auckland, with higher than normal congestion on main roads and motorways. Auckland Transport says it's using all possible resources to make the month of hell run more smoothly than last year. The agency is putting on more services to meet demand, as traffic on the motorways increases and the number of people catching public transport goes up by 30 per cent. And from today, a government trial gets underway, allowing electric vehicles to zoom down Auckland motorway on-ramps. The trail runs for the next two weeks, and lets plug-in electic vehicles use five motorway on-ramp lanes normally reserved for buses, trucks and high-occupancy vehicles. Matt Lowrie, editor of New Zealand's Transport Blog, talks about our transport woes.

March Madness is in full-swing in Auckland, with higher than normal congestion on main roads and motorways.

March Madness is in full-swing in Auckland, with higher than normal congestion on main roads and motorways. Photo: 123RF