300 Cars In Tunnel

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31123, 28 July 1966, Page 1

300 Cars In Tunnel

Clogging of the Christchurch-Lyttelton road tunnel when crowds visited Lyttelton during the weekend to see the submarine Tabard disturbed members of the Road Tunnel Authority yesterday.

Discussion led to a decision that the traffic committee should call a conference of all interested parties and that the authority’s policy should be that when the tunnel was operating normally there should be a free flow of traffic. The authority was told by its general manager (Mr L. H. Wilson) that the tunnel had been blocked by stationary traffic last Sunday. The fans had to go on to high speed at one stage, and this had cost the authority an extra £429 on maximum demand, without taking into account the extra electricity units used. Mr Wilson compared the traffic last Sunday with that on the Sunday when the Royal yacht Britannia was in Lyttelton, and said that there was a higher peak last Sunday of 1041 vehicle between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. There had been a complete stoppage of traffic to Lyttelton, stretching back through the tunnel to the Heathcote portal. About 300 vehicles had

been tn the tunnel, Mr Wilson said. The red light had been on at the Heathcote portal, but some motorists had still entered the tunnel, and the bylaw requiring 75ft between vehicles had not been observed, mainly because the by-law was not generally known, he said. If the by-law had been observed the number of vehicles in the southbound lane would not have exceeded 85. Mr Wilson said that the difficulty had been caused by traffic reaching Lyttelton not being moved up the hill along Dublin street. When carbon-monoxlde levels reached 400 parts a million the fans were run at high. Normally they did not run above slow. “I am not prepared to accept responsibility for having a tunnel full of cars with possibly 1000 occupants,” the chairman (Mr R. A. Witrock) said. “The authority should have a policy to guard against such an occurence in the future.” Mr Witbrock emphasised that the tunnel could handle all the traffic operating and that a bottleneck elsewhere was not the authority’s concern. Mr L. G. Amos. There should be a continuous flow of traffic or we should shut off the tunnel. Mr W. P. Glue said that until traffic was blocked it would

be impossible to say that there would be a build-up of cars. Once it happened it was too late to do anything except close the tunnel to more traffic. Immediately there was any congestion in the tunnel, traffic should be stopped at the toll booths and not allowed to go even to the portal, Mr Witbrock said. People would “crash” a red light but respect a barrier. Last Sunday had been a warning to the authority, he said. It could provide for all the vehicles that wanted to use the tunnel, but it could not guard against congestion elsewhere. When that happened the authority had to make sure that the tunnel was kept clear for smooth-flowing traffic, even though the authority might lose revenue. "We have to keep it safe.” he said.