Lessons to be learned from Lake Road works

The traffic congestion issue arising by the Lake Road works is only a case study of such mismanaged project. As a result, those projects normally end of from residents’ complaint and government claptrap.

I personally suffered from the traffic chaos on Lake Road once. I can totally understand why residents and business owners complaint about it. It is a very hard time. Every second is tantalizing. It seems like there are workers always standing around and not actually doing anything. You are sitting in your car doing nothing, but wasting of time, wasting of petrol, feeling hungry waiting for them doing some ‘work’. Everything is ridiculous. The whole project is an absolute joke.

However, we have learned three things from this project. Firstly, the Auckland Transport is miscommunication with the residents and business owners. Therefore, the citizens are feeling confused and misunderstanding about government works. The short-term inconvenient would cause citizens against government and not gain for the long-term outcomes.

Secondly, poor traffic management was a direct cause of much of the traffic chaos. The traffic management had been badly handled, particularly with lanes being closed during the peak traffic hours.

Thirdly, the project progress has not followed by the schedule. The Auckland chief executive David Warburton stated that ‘opportunities to make significant progresses were missed in the summer of 2009 and 2010 with a five-month break between contracts. Auckland Transport needs to remember that project inefficiencies have a direct economic impact on our local economy’.

No matter it is the government or a normal person, we made mistakes sometime. But at least we learn from the lessons and move on.