Otaki to Levin to be two lanes only

Stuff reported:

NZTA regional relationships director Emma Speight said the new two-lane highway would co-exist with the existing State Highway 1 route, and could be extended to four lanes if there was enough demand.

It will connect to the south with the Peka Peka to Ōtaki highway, which is under construction, and the recently-opened Kāpiti expressway between Mackays and Peka Peka.

This is a bad decision. When a lour lane expressway turns into a two-lane highway you get huge delays as they merge.

The spin from the Minister is hilarious:

All the routes will receive four lanes of capacity in total, when combining the improved existing highways with the addition of new two lane highways and urgent safety improvements.

Twyford has outdone himself. He claims the routes have four lanes of capacity if you include two totally separate roads.

This is like claiming there are four lanes of capacity between Wellington and Auckland as there are two on SH1 and two on SH2.

The difference between two and four lanes is immense.

A two lane road means all traffic travels at the speed of the slowest car. A four land road means one lane of traffic can flow at the speed limit.