The fallout from crippling delays at the Ports of Auckland will be most visible on the road between Auckland and Whangārei over the coming days.
From Friday, Waka Kotahi says there will be 800 additional heavy vehicle movements on this section of the State Highway 1 route.
It is because nearly 1200 containers of consumer goods need unloading from the cargo ship Constantinos P, which was diverted to NorthPort to avoid the delays at the Ports of Auckland.
Up to 12 trucks are expected to leave Northport every hour from 6am until midnight for the next seven days.
Many empty trucks will then make the return journey for another load.
State Highway 1 runs through the centre of Wellsford, at the Auckland region's northern border, and locals there are not looking forward to the extra traffic.
"It's just constant noise, constant noise. You can't turn around, you can't pull out of streets. It just never stops," one person told Checkpoint.
"It is stopping a lot of people coming into town because they just can't park anywhere, you can't cross the road safely. We've got one pedestrian crossing. They don't do 50km/h and it's a bit of a nightmare really."
The fewer trucks on the road the better, another said.
"It seems a bit strange, we've got a big railway track just there and it's not utilised as much as what I think it could be.
"This is state highway 1 and we've got pedestrian crossings, people trying to cross all the time and some of the trucks come through here quite quickly, and they always seem to be beeping at cars trying to pull out. So there is a lot of congestion and sort of a choking point in Wellsford I think for traffic generally," he said.
A shop worker described it as awful, with the noise and rumbling of trucks shaking the whole store.
"It also makes people who are just driving cars a bit antsy because they're behind trucks. They want to get to work and so when you cross a pedestrian [crossing] they're not that careful.
"At least once a day you'll be on a pedestrian and someone will not stop for you. It's pretty dangerous actually… not ideal at all."
