Some pretty cool design details for the Waterview Connection project have emerged, and are worth taking a look through. Starting at the southern end of the project: The above picture shows the interchange with Maioro Street.
Shifting further along, you can see how the motorway will look as it passes through Allan Wood Reserve: It’s good to see that, while the motorway will be running effectively through the middle of a large green space, the leftover parts of that space are going to be really nicely landscaped. While the area is certainly a lot of grass at the moment, it’s not particularly intensively used.
Shifting further west, we see the southern portal of the tunnel: Artistic impressions of the southern portal look really awesome: The pedestrian path over the motorway will also be quite nicely designed: It also looks like quite a lot of thought has gone into landscaping around the northern portal – although this is a slightly outdated design: The interchange with SH16 is certainly pretty huge, but once again it seems that some thought has gone into the landscaping to mitigate its effects: The tunnels will be bored with a 14 metre diameter tunnel boring machine, which should be a pretty impressive piece of equipment.
With special votes seeming likely to result in the Green Party getting one more MP, at the cost of National, and the chances of Auckland Central and/or Waitakere swinging from National to Labour being relatively (but not impossibly) slim, we have a fairly good idea about the shape of the future government.
We have 121 seats – a one seat overhang. This is down from the current parliament, which has 122 seats. This means that 61 seats are necessary for a majority.
National are likely to end up with 59 seats, which leaves them two short of a majority. They will require two “parties” (it feels a bit wrong calling one man bands of Act & United Future parties) out of United Future, Act and the Maori Party for support. This shouldn’t be too difficult. Ironically Labour might be kicking themselves for winning Te Tai Tonga as then there’d be a two seat overhang and National would need all three of these support parties – a much harder ask.
Interestingly, the total number of seats of parties generally supporting the government is down from 69 to 65 (assuming the Maori Party supports them), which gives a little less breathing space than we had previously. If either John Banks or Peter Dunne disagree with National on anything then they could make life pretty difficult – although I think this is unlikely as both will probably become defacto National MPs.
What does this all mean for transport? Well obviously the government is likely to continue with its current policies – as I outlined in this post we are likely to see further investigation of four additional Roads of National Significance. Personally I think these extra roads are more election bribes than anything else as there’s unlikely to be any money in the transport budget for major new projects for at least a decade if the government keeps pushing forward on their current RoNS.
In three years time obviously Victoria Park Tunnel will be fully completed and opened (I wonder if it will still be plagued by horrific congestion, I suspect so), construction on the Waterview Connection will be in full swing and widening of the SH16 causeway should be well under way. I’m not entirely sure what progress is expected to be made on Puhoi-Wellsford by that stage. Assuming that Labour and the Green Party stick to their pledge to scale back this road, a change of government in three years time could well mean that the “holiday highway” never happens, unless so much construction on it has occurred by 2014 that it’s impossible to back out of. I think that’s unlikely.
My pick for the big “elephant in the room” issue for road construction over the next three years will be declining fuel tax receipts putting enormous pressure on NZTA’s ability to actually deliver on the projects the government is promising. Already this year we are seeing NZTA finding it desperately difficult to “pay the bills”, having to put off many of its subsidies that go to Auckland Transport for a month or two here and there, so that they can manage their incredibly tight cashflow. If petrol prices continue to rise between now and 2014 this trend will only increase and we might find it very difficult to fund either the smaller projects (generally those with the best cost-benefit ratios) or we may have to be looking at delaying some of NZTA’s bigger projects. I feel that even increasing NZTA’s ability to borrow (as proposed in the LTMA reforms) will only delay this inevitability.
Of course it’s not all doom and gloom over the next three years. By late 2014 pretty much all our flash new electric trains should be running on the Auckland rail network, and judging by recent trends our rail patronage may be getting close to 15 million trips a year. With an enlarged Greens caucus, and key Labour MPs with a strong interest in Auckland transport issues (Phil Twyford, David Shearer and Jacinda Ardern) being returned to parliament and identified as rising stars, there should be an even better informed political debate over transport in the future. As I have noted in a few recent posts, I am particularly excited that Julie-Anne Genter has made it into parliament – I’m looking forward to parliament’s first questions on parking policy!
Like with many things, the real wildcard might be New Zealand First. Which side of the political divide they fall on transport policy is probably yet to be determined, but they may find it a useful weapon to attack the government on. Although Andrew Williams was clearly the worst mayor North Shore City ever had, the fact that he has been in that position means that he must have a reasonably good awareness of transport matters in the Auckland area – which must be a good thing.
NZTA continue to refuse to publish their board papers online (even though they spend around $3 billion of taxpayers’ money a year), so in the cause of increased transparency I have been doing Official Information Act requests for their board papers for a while now. Here are the papers from the latest meeting, with a short comment where I think they contain something interesting. A list of the documents is included below:Attachment 1 – Chief Executive’s Report. Quite a lot of the “progress on RoNS” information has been withheld, which is quite disappointing. Aside from that, there’s an interesting snippet about NZTA’s concerns over the Rugby World Cup opening night. More detail is provided in attachment 11 on this matter.
Attachment 2 – NLTF cashflow and programme management. This document is really interesting, as it details some of the significant cashflow problems NZTA is facing at the moment, which has led to a complete moratorium (and potentially even further measures) on new state highway projects for quite some time. This is summarised below: While some of the extra expenditure has obviously been unavoidable, it is somewhat concerning to heard about the discrepancies due to MoT not recording expenditure (further investigation showed that this was around $180 million, not a small amount!)
Attachment 3 – Quarterly Report on Borrowing. This seems a fairly standard and repeating report showing NZTA’s cashflow position. As per the previous paper, it’s clear that NZTA is really pushing their debt limits at the moment.
Attachment 4 – Refreshing the Investment and Revenue Strategy. This document outlined some possible changes that NZTA will be making to the way they prioritise transport projects, as a result of changes to the Government Policy Statement. The proposals are quite worrying, particularly in terms of focusing more emphasis on ‘strategic fit’ (which means little more than what is the Minister’s pet project).
Attachment 5 – NLTP activity funding class allocations. This gives us some hints about the level of funding NZTA is going to give to various types of transport over the next few years – it largely reflects the roads-obsessed Government Policy Statement, so is fairly depressing.
Attachment 6 – Proposed changes to funding assistance rates. This outlines some changes to the level which NZTA helps subsidise the different councils around the country in undertaking their work. It’s worth noting that Auckland gets a relatively low level of subsidy compared to most of the rest of the country.
Attachment 8 – Pricing and Operation Principles for National Integrated Ticketing. A very interesting paper that confirms NZTA will take over the running of all public transport ticketing systems in New Zealand in the future, to enable interoperability. Snapper made quite a detailed submission raising concerns about the proposal but (thankfully) these have been dismissed by NZTA who note the importance of having independence the processing system from any bus operator. This is summarised below:
Attachment 10 – Western Ring Route, pre-award review. This paper relates to the process NZTA have undertaken (or were about to undertake when the paper was written) to decide who would win the contract for constructing the Waterview Connection process. It’s an interesting insight into how these decisions are made.
Attachment 11 – General Business. This has a wide variety of information, although as noted under attachment one, it’s particularly interesting to see what was said about the concerns NZTA had about the Rugby World Cup opening night: Overall there’s a bit more interesting stuff than you normally get from an NZTA board meeting. Particularly in relation to integrated ticketing and the financial issues NZTA is currently facing.
Yesterday NZTA announced that Fletcher Construction, along with a bunch of other companies, forming what’s called the “Well-Connected” consortium, have won the contract for the Waterview Connection project:
NZTA awards contract for New Zealand’s biggest-ever roading project
New Zealand’s biggest and most complex roading project – Auckland’s Waterview Connection – is a step closer to completion with the NZ Transport Agency’s announcement today that it has chosen the preferred tenderer for the project’s construction.
The successful tenderer is the Well-Connected consortium. Well-Connected includes New Zealand and international companies: Fletcher Construction, McConnell Dowell Constructors, Obayashi Corporation, PB New Zealand, Beca Infrastructure and Tonkin & Taylor. The consortium includes five sub-alliance partners and contractors: SICE, Wilson Tunnelling, Downer EDI Works, Boffa Miskell and Warren and Mahoney. Well-Connected will now enter into an alliance with the NZTA to deliver the project.
The project, to be finished by 2016, will complete one of the key links in the Western Ring Route around Auckland by connecting the Southwestern Motorway (SH20) at Mt Roskill to the Northwestern Motorway (SH16), providing a 48 kilometre motorway alternative to ease pressure on SH1 and the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
“Today’s announcement marks a significant milestone towards a transport solution that will deliver many benefits for Aucklanders and for all of New Zealand,” says the NZTA’s Chief Executive, Geoff Dangerfield.
“The Waterview Connection is the key transport link needed to complete the Western Ring Route. This will have a major change on the way traffic moves around Auckland, keeping the city moving and the economy growing. Business, commuters and tourists will all be able to travel more reliably, more safely and with much greater convenience. This important travel solution will reduce congestion and provide a strategic alternative to SH1 – the country’s busiest motorway.”
The Western Ring Route is one of seven Roads of National Significance (RoNS), identified by the Government as vital to enabling economic growth in New Zealand by moving people and freight between and within major population centres more safely and efficiently.
Together with the NZTA, Well-Connected will be responsible for constructing nearly 5kms of new motorway that includes tunnels and interchanges that will connect the Southwestern and Northwestern Motorways.
More than half of the new motorway will be underground – traffic will drive through two three-lane tunnels – which will be a first for New Zealand.
“This project will require underground work at an unprecedented scale, in a country where road tunnels are relatively rare. It will need to be constructed through difficult terrain that consists of soft sedimentary rock and basalt lava flows,” says Mr Dangerfield.
“It won’t be easy, but by constructing the project in an alliance between the NZTA and the private sector, we’re ensuring that this project will be delivered as quickly as possible and with the very best value for money.” Mr Dangerfield says today’s announcement marks a significant milestone in a rigorous procurement process that started last year.
Last November, the NZTA shortlisted three registered consortia down to two. The other shortlisted consortium which was unsuccessful today was Tuhono. The Tuhono consortium included Leighton Contractors, Fulton Hogan, John Holland, Aecom and Sinclair Knight Merz. Tuhono also included United Group and Keller New Zealand as proposed sub alliance partners.
Mr Dangerfield thanked Tuhono for its hard work and involvement in the process and says that both of the final tender submissions received by the NZTA were innovative, demonstrated good value for money and proved that either of these competitors were up to the challenge of delivering a complex and important project of this size.
“These parties have been engaged in a competitive and rigorous tender process that has attracted a high level of interest both nationally and internationally. We have been incredibly impressed with what they have delivered, and we are pleased with the outcome of this competitive process. We are on track to deliver this very large project on time and on budget at $1.4 billion. That’s great news for Auckland and great news for New Zealand.”
Mr Dangerfield says the NZTA has run the competitive alliance tender process in parallel with its pursuit of statutory approvals for the Waterview Connection Project from the Board of Inquiry. The Agency received the final nod to go ahead in July.
“Running the two processes in parallel has helped us save up to a year in construction time and ensure we get the best market prices.
“Now, we gear up towards the start of construction. We’re nailing down the final design scheme that will incorporate all of the Board’s additions and take into account the community’s views and concerns and excitingly, we’re looking forward to getting that first spade in the ground before the end of the year.” Mr Dangerfield adds.
“And it doesn’t stop here for the community. They will continue to have a very active role as the project develops. We’ll be establishing community liaison groups that will ensure the community will have a voice throughout the project’s lifecycle and we’ll make sure they’ll be in place well before construction commences.”
While I can’t help but wonder what spending $1.4 billion on further improving Auckland’s public transport system might help achieve, I have generally come around to accepting the Waterview Connection project as a necessary last piece of Auckland’s motorway system. In particular, it was heartening to follow the Board of Inquiry consenting process quite closely, read through the 300-odd page decision and see that it really had taken into account many of the community’s concerns about the impact of the project – and required some really substantial mitigation.
With the Hobsonville Motorway now open, the Waterview Connection project will complete the Western Ring Route and (hopefully) complete the Auckland motorway network for good.
There were some videos from the NZTA that admin posted around the beginning of the year looking at the Puhoi to Wellsford RoNS and there was also a video of the Waterview Connection that was posted last year. Looking around online it appears there are a few more for other RoNS projects that were released.
First up we have a newer version of the Waterview Connection which is a little more detailed that the original (I quite like the Hendon Rd footbridge)
Next up we have North and Southbound animations of the Victoria Park Tunnel project
Heading South East we have the Tauranga Eastern Link
Lastly here is some videos showing what Transmission Gulley would look like, the cuts through some of those hills are huge and the of those embankments are pretty high. This will massively change the geography of the area.
One thing you notice is that in all videos is that their magically isn’t any congestion, funny that.
A draft decision of the Board of Inquiry into the Waterview Connection project has been released today, confirming reports from a couple of weeks ago that the Board has imposed some reasonably significant changes. These include requiring the relocation of the tunnel’s southern portal building, the shifting of the northern ventilation stack to the other side of Great North Road and the requirement that NZTA contribute $8 million to the construction of a cycleway between SH20 and SH16.
The whole decision can be read here. The full set of conditions now to be applied to the construction of the project can be read here.
I have kept a reasonably close eye on this project over the past few months, being particularly interested to see how the EPA and Board if Inquiry process would work for a large-scale motorway project. In effect, the Waterview Connection hearings process has been a test of some of the 2009 amendments to the RMA: which allowed large-scale projects to be ‘fast-tracked’ to a far greater extent than was possible before. In general, the process seems to have worked out OK, and the Board’s decision (which runs to nearly 400 pages) is a comprehensive analysis of the project.
I am pleased with many of the changes they have suggested, in particular the requirement that NZTA contribute to the construction cost of the cycleway. I also think the changes to locations of the portals, associated buildings and/or ventilation stacks will ensure the project’s effects are minimised to a greater extent than before.
The Campaign for Better Transport’s criticism of the project gets an interesting analysis around pages 64-66 of the decision. In effect the Board is saying that it cannot determine the appropriateness of the government’s decision making process when it comes to prioritising transport projects and that requiring a post-construction audit of the project’s benefits seem outside the scope of what the Board can do.
Overall, while I still have some lingering issues with the Waterview Connection project, in terms of whether it’s the best immediate way of spending $2 billion and whether we really need to widen the Northwest Motorway, I at least feel satisfied that the hard work of many community activists in pushing for better mitigation of the project’s pretty significant adverse effects has been worthwhile.
There was some excellent news today for residents in the Waterview/Owairaka area that much of their hard work to get a better mitigation package out of NZTA for the impact of the Waterview Connection project seems to have been successful. The NZ Herald reports the following:
A board of inquiry appointed by the Government to oversee a fast-track consenting process for the country’s largest transport project has accepted their submissions on where vehicle emissions towers should be erected at each end of a pair of motorway tunnels.
The five-member board chaired by Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook has directed the Transport Agency to build a northern tower on the other side of Great North Rd from Waterview Primary School, which is next to its preferred site.
It also wants a tower in Owairaka at the opposite end of the tunnels to be built 70 to 80 metres southeast of the agency’s preferred site, away from a narrow chokepoint in Alan Wood Reserve.
I am particularly pleased that the ventilation tower at Waterview will be shifted away from the primary school and the nearby residential area. Although many expert air quality witnesses testified over and over again that the tower wouldn’t result in hazardous air pollution levels, I am sure that the perception that the tower would generate pollution would have been widespread. How comfortable would you feel about sending your five year old child to a school with a giant ventilation stack right next to it? While I remain worried that the tower will in some respects become the symbol for Waterview it seems less likely for this to happen with it being on the opposite side of Great North Road among a lot of large trees. The diagram below shows the different options considered for moving the ventilation stack/tower:
I’m not quite sure which of the three alternatives have been chosen (either 1 or 2, that’s for sure). If the above diagram is a little difficult to make sense out of, below shows an aerial of the area with the location of the alternative locations for the ventilation towers: The BP petrol station is in the top left corner of the plan, to help orientate yourself.
With the southern stack and ventilation buildings, the proposed shift will also result in significant benefits – both as the building is shifted away from a narrow point of the Alan Wood Reserve (where it would have really really dominated the area) and also because the building is to be put largely underground. The diagram below shows the effect of the move: The red dotted outline shows the edges of the building as initially proposed. The details of the access road in this particular diagram may well be incorrect, but what is obvious is that the building is to be largely underground (which is great as it sits in a park) and that the building is shifted away from the really narrow point of the reserve – freeing up more space for recreational activity.
Another excellent gain that the Board of Inquiry seem intent on requiring is in relation to the proposed cycleway linking up the Northwest Cycleway with the cycleway that runs next to State Highway 20 through Mt Roskill:
Other board directions include requiring the agency to pay $8 million towards a cycleway between Owairaka and Waterview.
All these additional requirements are going to add some serious cost to the project – something the NZ Herald article picked up on:
The agency told the board during its hearings that $11 million to $21 million in extra costs spent on moving the location of the tunnels’ southern ventilation building and partly burying an associated ventilation building could be better spent on other mitigation.
It estimated that building the northern emissions tower across Great North Rd from the primary school could add up to $29 million to the bill.
Overall I’m exceptionally pleased that the Board of Inquiry has required these additional mitigation measures. Waterview and Owairaka were really getting hammered by the project (and still do to an extent) while experiencing fairly limited benefits. The proposed changes should significantly reduce the negative effects of the project, while the cycleway will add a really important connection for our regional cycling network.
All the hard work the local communities put into this process seems to have paid off – at least to some extent.
Depending on how you read into Wellington City Council’s decision to support NZTA’s suggested recommendations at their meeting last night, they either folded under NZTA’s pressure or simply reaffirmed their commitment to working with NZTA on a multi-modal corridor plan between the Ngauranga Gorge and Wellington Airport.
It is the mother of all U-turns from Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, who not only voted for her council to support the Government’s $2.4 billion roading projects package but proposed the motion.
The retreat at last night’s extraordinary meeting of Wellington City Council ended weeks of speculation and confirmed the council’s support of the New Zealand Transport Agency’s roading plan.
Its proposal includes a possible flyover to the north of the Basin Reserve, duplicate Terrace and Mt Victoria tunnels, and four-laning Ruahine St and Wellington Rd.
Specific options for each project have yet to be released, but the council has now endorsed the agency’s overall plan.
Reading the council’s media release on the project suggests something a bit different though:
Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown has welcomed tonight’s vote by the City Council confirming its support for the New Zealand Transport Agency’s Ngauranga to Wellington Airport Corridor Plan.
The Council tonight agreed to support the underlying premise that the transport issues within Wellington city can only be addressed by the implementation of a multi-modal package…
…The NZTA tonight issued a statement welcoming the Council’s support as “an important step towards progressing the multi-modal initiatives embraced in the plan.”
This term “multi-modal” seems to be the key point here. But what does it actually mean? The same term ended up being used in the study that’s meant to lead to a designation for rail to Auckland Airport: leading to the bizarre situation where nobody referred to the word “rail” in that project, even though everyone knows it’s about advancing the rail designation.
In my mind, multi-modal investigations are a pretty good idea. I tend to think that they involve looking at a corridor without any assumptions of what is the preferred option for improving transport, analysing current trends and demands, looking at environmental and engineering constraints, assessing different options based on what general transport goals there are in broad plans and strategies and then choosing your preferred way of improving transport. The outcome might be a mix of roading, public transport and walking/cycling improvements – or it might be some and not others. The point being that you assessed all the modal options without a preconceived idea of what the solution is, before coming up with your preferred option.
I’m not sure whether that’s what NZTA is meaning when it talks about multi-modal corridors – whether they’re talking about investigations or actually building one. I tend to think that it’s a very cynical phrase that NZTA uses to quell dissatisfaction with the public response to something that they’ve already decided upon the outcome – in Wellington’s case a four lane motorway (except in some areas that won’t be grade-separated) along the whole of this supposedly multi-modal corridor. They might throw in a half-hearted cycle lane here and there, plus a bus advance box somewhere along the route so that it has at least some benefit for public transport.
Generally though, I think use of the term ‘multi-modal corridor’ is another extremely cynical example of what I like to call “PT-wash” (or “transitwash”). It involves ploughing ahead with a large-scale roading project while spending around 1% of the budget on extremely insignificant benefits to public transport, walking and cycling. The Waterview Connection project is a classic example of this: NZTA continue to promote it as ‘enhancing modal choice’ – even though the only PT improvements they’ve created are pretty useless bus shoulder lanes (useless as the buses will keep on having to merge at each motorway ramp), plus NZTA continue to fight in every possible way to not have to provide a cycleway above the motorway tunnel.
So my advice would be to take an extremely cynical viewpoint whenever you hear the term “multi-modal”. Ask what that actually means, and to what extent the parties are really going into a multi-modal study with an open mind – or conversely whether the non-roading elements of the project are just another blatant example of PT-wash: designed to shut the public up with a few small scraps while ploughing ahead with massive roading projects.
Well I’m in Wellington for most of this week, at the New Zealand Planning Institute conference for the next three days and then staying on at the weekend to check out the city a bit. It should give me the opportunity to ride a suburban Wellington train on the weekend, which I haven’t ever done before (I wonder if I can try to catch one of the new Matangi trains).
It’s interesting to discuss with a few other planners some of the transport situation in Wellington, and in particular matters related to the Wellington Northern Corridor Road of National Significance. While I’ve certainly not been keen on a few of the Auckland based “RoNS” – in particular the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway”, but the more I learn about the Wellington Northern Corridor RoNS the more I think that this is the worst of the lot. Let’s have a look at the map of the route: The route has many of the typical problems associated with many of Auckland’s RoNS: like the poor economics of parts of the route (such as Transmission Gully, which has a cost-benefit ratio of 0.6) and the huge amount of money that could be better spent on other projects. However, in addition to those problems there’s also the massive issue of the environmental effects of many of the parts of the RoNS – such as the “improvements” around the Basin Reserve and the effect of the motorway on local communities as it passes through the Kapiti Coast.
Obviously many similar issues have been raised with the Waterview Connection project, and it would seem as though the Board of Inquiry for that project seeming to still have a number of big problems – and it will be interesting to see whether they’re willing to grant it consent. However, the Waterview project is still largely in a tunnel, which means that its effects are vastly less than they would otherwise have been. The same for the Victoria Park Tunnel – another Auckland based RoNS.
It seems, from what is admittedly a rather brief look, that Wellington is getting a a pretty raw deal with the urban effects of this particular road. The mitigation details might be further expanded upon compared to what I currently know, but at the moment it sounds pretty horrible. This reinforces my general feeling that there’s simply no room to build more motorways through our urban areas anymore, that we need to use our existing transport infrastructure more effectively and efficiently – rather than spending vast sums of money on more urban motorways, and in the process destroying the value of our urban areas. It will be interesting to see whether Wellington accepts the impact of this road on the city’s urban structure.
When thinking about the Western Ring Route the most common thought is about completing the Waterview Connection however there is also another bit part of overall project and that is widening SH16 from St Lukes all the way through to Westgate. The image below shows the planned number of lanes for this entire section.
The works from Te Atatu to St Lukes are included as part of the Waterview Connection but the other parts aren’t and recently the NZTA started construction on the Lincoln Road interchange. I think most people that have used it would probably agree that Lincoln Rd has to be one of the worst interchanges on the Auckland motorway network. The on and off ramps are generally quite tight an curvy with little space to merge, the overbridge is narrow and you would have to be pretty brave to try getting across on foot.
So here is what the NZTA have said about it.
$100 million seems like a hell of a lot of money for one interchange and a small stretch of motorway on each side. So what are we going to get for that $100 million? The most promenant thing is that they are going to widen the bridge from 2 lanes to 7. The bridge is almost exclusively for access to and from the motorway and most of that is to get to the citybound onramp so why on earth does it need 7 lanes and what are they going to do with them all?
Of the other things we will get, more bus shoulders are better than what we have now but it seems like such a wasted opportunity not to have put a proper busway in as it serves a completely different catchment to the western rail line. They will realign the ramps and probably the best thing of the project is the cycleway will be extended a further 2km. So what is the interchange going to look like and what are all those lanes for? The NZTA don’t seem to have anything in the way of maps or diagrams online but I have managed to find the NOR documents that were filed with the old Waitakere City Council. There are quite a few maps as the project actually extends from just east of the Henderson Creek to Huruhuru Rd but here is the one for the interchange itself.
So we can see that there will be three lanes heading north towards the citybound onramp and one of those is a bus /HOV lane which seems reasonable, the transport assessment indicates that there won’t be huge numbers of buses even at peak time so this should be ok. We can also see that the 4 lanes that make up the rest of the bridge are all Southbound which seems completely overkill, even though one is a turning lane. You can also see some quite big changes to 3 of the 4 ramps, removing the tight corners that currently exist.
You can also see they have highlighted all of the footpaths/cycleways in yellow which makes them much easier to see. This is definitely a lot more than there are now however I can see one big issue with this, for someone travelling along the cycleway they will have to cross 4 sets of traffic lights just to be able to carry on their journey. How much more expensive would it have been to put a bridge in while they were doing all of these works, by doing it at the same time it and being for pedestrians/cyclists only it surely wouldn’t cost that much. A bridge also wouldn’t look that out of place as the area is light industrial and the nearest houses are 150-200m away. If a bridge was to much, what about a simple underpass? again if done at the same time it shouldn’t end up costing that much more. To me it just seems like the NZTA put it in the to hard basket which is a real shame as the NW cycleway is probably the best infrastructure of its kind in the city and many of the other onramps or major roads have been bridged over to allow a continuous journey.
Lastly you can also see the existing red dotted line marking the existing motorway boundary. With the realigned ramps, particularly the Eastbound ones, I wonder if the NZTA have considered selling off the excess land after they finish as there seems like there will be quite a bit available which could be redeveloped.
The above picture shows the interchange with Maioro Street.
It’s good to see that, while the motorway will be running effectively through the middle of a large green space, the leftover parts of that space are going to be really nicely landscaped. While the area is certainly a lot of grass at the moment, it’s not particularly intensively used.
Artistic impressions of the southern portal look really awesome:
The pedestrian path over the motorway will also be quite nicely designed:
It also looks like quite a lot of thought has gone into landscaping around the northern portal – although this is a slightly outdated design:
The interchange with SH16 is certainly pretty huge, but once again it seems that some thought has gone into the landscaping to mitigate its effects:
The tunnels will be bored with a 14 metre diameter tunnel boring machine, which should be a pretty impressive piece of equipment.
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