Hamilton Urban Blog

Each year Waikato Regional Council reports on transport in the region, this is called – WRC Annual Regional Transport Monitoring Report 2012/13 and the is the web address.

http://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz

Here’s what it says about changes in motor vehicle movement:

Traffic flows are highly fluctuating between and within the corridors.

And here is what it says about heavy traffic in the map labelled Figure 8 in the report:

Heavy traffic volumes have decreased in the lower Waikato region and along much of State Highway 1.

Actually what Figure 8 shows is that the total amount of heavy traffic travelling through the Waikato appears to be decreasing. If traffic was moving to different routes we should be able to see where it is moving to, on alternative routes between Tauranga and Auckland or routes radiating out of Hamilton to ports or other main centres.

The report does go on to explain where we do have growth

there has been a doubling of daily rail freight movements between Auckland and Tauranga. They have also confirmed that the Auckland to Tauranga rail corridor is one of the best-performing freight routes for KiwiRail at a national level.

Maybe rail is becoming unbeatable for container movements between main centres?