Subscribe to RSSWellington St Off Ramp To Close
Next month, the busy Wellington Street on-ramp will be closed for around 3 months so that supporting walls for the southern approach to the Victoria Park tunnel can be built.
The on-ramp – which provides access from the Auckland CBD and Ponsonby to State Highway 1 for traffic heading north across the Auckland Harbour Bridge - will close on Monday, August 23.
The NZTA says it plans to have it re-opened at the end of November.
It says the only viable alternative is to do the work at weekends only, which would require closing the on-ramp for 40 consecutive weekends, so a three month closure is considered “the least fuss, most gain option.”
The proximity of the work to live motorway lanes means the walls can be built safely only with the on-ramp closed,.
Construction of the tunnel is going at a rapid pace.
It reached a milestone earlier this week with the completion of the tunnel walls within Victoria Park.
The motorway between the Wellington Street overbridge and Victoria Park is being widened from four to seven lanes. The tunnel will take three northbound traffic lanes, and the existing Victoria Park viaduct will be reconfigured to carry four southbound lanes. SH1 through St Marys Bay is being widened by one lane in each direction to 10 lanes in total.
Moving the Rob Roy (Birdcage) tavern up the road from the construction area is also scheduled for next month.
4 Comments
This on ramp should have been closed when the new port/NW on ramp was opened
I read somewhere m’way interchanges should be spaced 5-10 km’s apart minimum?. These two at spaghetti junction must be 50 metres apart. Best practice would have say three maximum interchanges for central Auckland, say Greenlane, Nelson/Hobson and Fanshawe Street for the waterfront. All the rest bar the NW/S/N motorway interchange should close and the jam up in the gully would dissipate. Gilles Ave. residents would approve I’m sure!
Our motorways have an arterial function, sadly. So the result would be huge traffic jams on the remaining motorway onramps and nearby streets, and conceivably a lot less use of the motorways itself. Car travel to the CBD and inner suburbs would also be heavily restricted.
Now I don’t necessarily disapprove of that, but the fact is that for the near future, it’s just not going to happen.
Impending traffic chaos of DOOM!
I understand the rationale for doing it this way, but damn I’m glad I don’t have to go anywhere near that part of town in a vehicle.
Well, closing one ramp actually won’t make the system collapse. But since NZTA are actually dual-laning the Wellington Street on-ramp as part of the deal, there is no chance of them later going “oh, actually we found we don’t need it, let’s just keep it closed”. Not with this government, and not with them just having built a brand spanking new on-ramp.
The only advantage we will get is less queueing on Union Street. Induced demand anyone? I love how the Wayne McDonald and the Herald are just overjoyed with how much easier all our motorways will soon flow. Induced demand, anyone?