Changelog

No live congestion feed exists for the valley's most-complained-about corridor, so residents now report how the drive actually is right now, alongside the BP Roundabout rebuild's official updates.

Live GeoNet feed, with the Alpine Fault's current 50-year rupture probability and the region's own quake history for context.

Reads QLDC's own road-status feed for the district-controlled pass to Wānaka and Cardrona — the one lifeline road the state-highway feed never covered.

Locals' Queenstown collects the questions residents keep asking — the good coffee, a feed that won't blow a hospo wage, the hour-long walk, the weekday ski tip — answered by the people who live here and ranked by their votes. Sign in to add a pick or vote. It launches empty and fills as neighbours weigh in.

How Busy Is Town? shows how crowded the centre is likely to be on any day in the next few months — ski season, summer, school holidays and events like the Queenstown Marathon — and the calmest day to go instead. It's a pattern, not a live count, to help you decide whether to drive in, take the bus, or leave it for another day.

Are the Roads Out Open? reads Waka Kotahi's official road-events feed and shows what's closed, delayed or under works on SH6 through the Kawarau Gorge, SH6A and SH8 — so you can check before you drive instead of waiting for the morning email. The Crown Range is a council road and isn't in this feed; the tool points you to QLDC and the passes tool for that one.

Pinned on the town page, "Can You Afford Queenstown?" now leads with what's left each week on the minimum wage after tax and rent — and how much of your take-home the rent alone takes — before you open the full calculator.

The town page now opens with a colored-pencil drawing of the lake and the sawtooth peaks of The Remarkables seen across the water from Queenstown's foreshore.

The roads out of Queenstown cross country that snows even when the valley doesn't. This new tool reads the forecast over the Crown Range and the Kawarau Gorge — how much snow is coming, how low the snow line is dropping, and whether a cold, wet night could ice the road — and pairs each pass with its own official road status: the council's daily report for the Crown Range, NZTA for the gorge. It describes the weather, not whether a road is open; that call stays with the road authorities, and the page says so.

The question people ask most before moving here is whether a local wage covers the rent. This new tool lets you put in your hourly pay and see your take-home after New Zealand tax, then what's left each week once rent and the essentials come out. The rents come from local reporting, the tax is worked out on the current Inland Revenue rates, and it's honest that it's a rough guide — it links IRD's own calculator and a free budgeting tool to check against.

Queenstown, on Lake Wakatipu, now has its first tools — built for the people who live and work there through a hard winter. There's a winter air-quality check for the woodsmoke that settles in the basin on cold nights; a plain-language guide for new arrivals and seasonal workers covering the roads and passes (Crown Range and the Kawarau Gorge), snow chains, the rent reality, buses, doctors and the airport curfew; the local numbers worth saving; and a clear rundown of the newer rules residents keep looking up — chains on council roads, the freedom-camping bylaw and the proposed overnight parking ban.