Website keeps eye on congestion 

A new website has been set up that gives drivers live access to some of the country's congestion hotspots, letting them choose the best time to travel.

Braving rush hour traffic is always a gamble, but the new site trafficwatch is giving drivers a crystal ball into what's happening on main routes in and out of Auckland and Wellington.

Trafficwatch  is the brainchild of Maitland Waters, an internet specialist who creates new websites for a living. He has linked nine of Transit and City Link's web cameras across Auckland and Wellington onto one site to help ease the daily ordeal for drivers.

"We're thrilled, it's been incredibly successful so far, we haven't officially launched but we have had 5,000 downloads already in the last two weeks," says Waters.

Trafficwatch has the backing of a Wellington based lobby group, Option 3, which believes billion dollar road building projects like Transmission Gully are a waste of money.

"Whether or not that's (Transmission Gully) built is pure speculation. If it does it's another 15 years and in the meantime we need initiatives that work right now," says Option 3 spokesman Karl Baker.

Waters is encouraging people to add their own web camera's to Trafficwatch and hopes it will catch on in other cities.

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