\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve opened on a public holiday,\u201d they said. <\/p>\n
\u201cMany people arrived early and all at once.\u201d <\/p>\n
The spokesperson said traffic volumes were affected by large numbers of people travelling to Te Arai Links, which was \u201clikely also because of the public holiday\u201d. <\/p>\n
Despite the slow start \u2013 and some festivalgoers spending up to four hours in traffic – the spokesperson said Shipwrecked\u2019s traffic management plan had performed better than expected. <\/p>\n
One local resident, who has lived in the area on and off since their childhood \u2013 and more recently for the past 20 years, says they\u2019d never seen the levels of traffic that came to a standstill outside their house on Friday. <\/p>\n
The resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, said they sympathise with those who were caught up in the traffic jam. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut does anyone give a toss about the people who live on these rural roads and are subjected to endless streams of traffic, difficulty getting in and out of properties, with no consultation by festival organisers, golf course management or council? <\/p>\n
Te Arai Links North Course. Photo \/ Ricky Robinson<\/p>\n
\u201cThe latter issues consents and allows development which might have benefit for the community but what of the cumulative effects of huge increases in traffic on rural residents\u2019 well-being and our roads?\u201d <\/p>\n
They believe a reduction in speed could mitigate some of the danger in the area. The road that they live on has a speed limit of 100km\/h \u2013 which they feel could be reduced to 80. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like council to put their traffic engineers on it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Exacerbating the issue, the residents said, is that the increased traffic has few if any other options to access the area.<\/p>\n
Some drivers heading into Shipwrecked Festival in Te Arai, Auckland, reported waiting in queues for more than four hours on Atkins Rd in the heat. Photo \/ Tiffany Firth<\/p>\n
\u201cShipwrecked is an annual event but the golf course and development traffic is ongoing. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not necessarily anti festivals or development like Te Arai Links but it is high time consideration is given to wider traffic calming and management issues which impact rural communities,\u201d says the long-time resident. <\/p>\n
Shipwrecked was due to finish up on Sunday evening. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve opened on a public holiday,\u201d they said. \u201cMany people arrived early and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2851,62037,51,12413,2841,8127,79166,5131,126404,4999,37367,2959,11551,101,20829,111,43,139,529,69,9061,154321,530,1314,3175,6302,154320,10814,25093,31788,8690,1361,165,684,8229,3946,3382,34379],"class_list":["post-273466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-also","tag-arai","tag-auckland","tag-chaos","tag-country","tag-end","tag-endless","tag-festival","tag-festivalgoers","tag-friday","tag-frustrated","tag-high","tag-hours","tag-left","tag-locals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-often","tag-queuing","tag-residents","tag-road","tag-rural","tag-safety","tag-shipwrecked","tag-slam","tag-speed","tag-stream","tag-te","tag-that","tag-their","tag-there","tag-they","tag-traffic","tag-using","tag-wits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}