Consultant transport planner for the Queenstown Lakes District Council Colin Shields spent several hours being grilled by a panel of independent commissioners.
The panel has been appointed by the council to come up with variations to the district plan allowing development of 120ha of rural land at Ladies Mile on the eastern outskirts of Queenstown.
The development would have up to 2400 residential units and, at some point, a primary and a secondary school.
Whether the development would add to congestion on State Highway 6 is one of the major issues facing the panel.
At the end of a long session of questioning, Mr Shields was asked by panel chairman David Allen, from Wellington, for his view on "how severe" six to 12-minute delays for Queenstown commuters was.
Mr Shields said it was "quite severe for Queenstown" before pointing out he was from Auckland where congestion was "a way of life".
"A six- to 12-minute delay in Queenstown for me coming from Auckland is nothing."
He went on to say queues along Queenstown’s eastern corridor — around the Shotover Bridge — disappeared during school holidays.
"It’s the schools.
"The schools are the problem."
He agreed with the panel a delay in providing schools at Ladies Mile could be a risk to a prediction of a 19% decrease in traffic using the bridge.
In his evidence in chief, Mr Shields said 40% of trips by 2028 and 60% by 2048 (between Frankton and Queenstown) would need to be by public transport, walking, cycling and ride sharing to maintain "a functional transport network".
How likely it would be that future Ladies Mile commuters took a bus or biked to work or school was one of the points examined by the panel.
Commissioner Gillian Crowcroft asked Mr Shields about how the weather affected people’s behaviour, saying she would not walk 800m to a bus stop when the weather was bad.
Mr Shields said a walk to a bus stop should be 400m to 500m — about a five-minute walk.
"Weather has been found to impact more on a recreational trip.
"The commuting trip is less impacted by weather."
He told Ms Crowcroft commuter routes for cyclists "should be sealed ... ideally sealed, ideally lit".
Commissioner Judith Makinson and Mr Shields agreed cycling over the Shotover bridge was not a safe option.
Ms Makinson considered the alternative where cyclists would travel over the old Shotover bridge, now a recreational route. She wanted to know how commuters would be encouraged to use the alternative route.
Mr Shields said the route "perhaps doesn’t give the feel" of a commuter route but it was part of the active transport network and there was evidence of it being used by commuters.
Ms Makinson also sought an answer to the "chicken or egg" question of which came first: housing development or transport infrastructure — with such things as bus lanes.
Mr Shields said it was a "tricky question" but he believed development needed to come first.
"If there is no certainty of development at Ladies Mile, then the provision of bus services will not be taken into account going into the future."
In his evidence, Mr Shields said it was relevant to compare Queenstown with Aspen Colorado which had achieved a 67.8% "non-car driver mode share" for commuting.
He told the panel Aspen’s buses were free.
