THORNDON RAMP

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 134, 8 June 1937, Page 10

THORNDON RAMP

RIGHT-HAND TURNS

SPECIAL TRAFFIC GUIDES

INQUIRY IN ENGLAND Problems of a special nature will have to be met in the control of traffic running over the Thorndon ramp now being built to give access from the Hutt Road to the new waterfront road, and today the plan prepared by the City Engineer as to the location of control lights and the division of traffic into lanes was discussed at the meeting of the City and Suburban Highways Board. The question was introduced by the reading of a report from the engineer relative to correspondence with the Public Wcrks Department, in which the Public Works Engineer stated that no provision had been made in the estimates for the building of the ramp for the installation of traffic control lights, the cost of which would be about £1100. Accordingly the Public Works Department suggested that the cost of such installation should be met by the local authorities. The City Engineer suggested that provision might be made from the Highways Board's estimates. The sketch plan of traffic lanes and light positions was explained to the board by the Assistant City' Engineer (Mr. E. R. McKillop)' and showed that though straight ahead traffic, either between the Hutt Road and the new waterfront road' or the Hutt Road and Thorndon Quay, will pass over or by the ramp without complications, a difficulty will have to be met in the control of traffic running from Thorndon Quay to the waterfront road and vice versa, in that through traffic will have to be halted while such- local traffic is making the turn—a right-handi turn for vehicles.running from Thorndon Quay to the waterfront road. CLOSING OF DAVIS STREET. Questions were asked by board members whether in fact this traffic is likely to be of any considerable volume. Mr. McKillop and the chairman (Councillor W. Appleton) said that it would be quite considerable, and most of it would, moreover, be heavy and rather slow-moving traffic, between the warehouses and stores on Thorndon Q ua y—with more stores still to be built, and the shipping and warehouses to be built on the frontage of the waterfront road. If provision was not made for the flow-of traffic from Thorndon Quay to the waterfront over the ramp it would mean, said Mr. McKillop, that Thorn-don-Quay traffic would have to run back along the quay to Bunny Street and round-by the new-station, as Davis Street is to be closed 'to all traffic. Such traffic would have to run up to a mile and a half. Had there been a sufficient width of roadway at the foot of the ramp (to the Hutt Road), said Mr. McKillop, the complications could have been overcome by an outer lane from which trucks and lorries could have turned into the stream a short distance from the foot of the ramp and have returned with the ,main flow over the | ramp, but that was not possible. CANCELLING FAD DEVICE. The solution suggested was control by traffic-actuated lights, similar to those in operation at the Queen's Wharf gates; but with an elaboration. Vehicles running north from Thorndon Quay would pass over a pad, making a con-tact-which would, after a short interval, change the lights and stop traffic in the main lanes and so allow the right-hand turn to be made safely. The slight delay between the crossing of the pad and the changing of the lights was the particular point of difference between the light control at the wharf gates and that proposed at the ramp. A driver who intended to turn off to the waterfront • road would stop his vehicle after passing over the contact pad till the lights changed, but the through driver would go ahead and his vehicle would pass over a second cancelling pad before the delay,period" had expired, so that no light change would be made. The traffic plan also provides for a division of traffic flow into definite lanes near the ramp. In reply to a question, Mr. McKillop said that the overbridge across the road would, under the Public Works Department's plan, not have a clear span but would have a central pier. The traffic control plan proposed, he continued, was not necessarily final, but the City Engineer wished to have authority to call for quotations and to consult traffic light specialists in England, who might suggest an amendment or improvement. The board agreed to that course being followed.