The NZTA have released a new video about the Waterview Connection (they actually released it about a month ago but I have only just seen it now). It is definitely a very pretty video but I get the feeling from the ending that it is partly to help push their case for moving the vent stack from the one mandated by the Board of Inquiry. This is something they were pushing back in Feb but I thought they had now dropped the issue.
Of course one does have to ask just how much was spent on this video, I bet it wasn’t cheap.
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Thanks, great video and impressive project, five years away though, seems a long time
It is indeed a very pretty video. And this is one roading project that I thoroughly support.
Cool video. BUT, will this affect traffic flow from Avondale/New Lynn/Blockhouse Bay (or Whau Ward) heading into town via Waterview? It’s already pretty congested as it is during rush hour.
I think it’ll be unlikely for the north stack to be built at the Board of Inquiry location. To do that will mean digging a huge otherwise unnecessary trench across Gt Nth Rd, disrupting traffic for weeks.
The vent location move was raised at the end of Nov last year. The proposed location at that stage was between the tunnels, similar to the south stack. Architecturally I preferred that location and design. However it is closer to the school.
This video shows the second alternative to the BoI location, further from the school but now more in view of local traffic and in an area which would otherwise have been park. I certainly hope that whatever design is built doesn’t include the colour orange or rusting steel. I still like the idea of the stack being built into a row of terrace houses or apartments, rather than sticking up advertising it’s presence.
For local traffic to access the tunnels, it can only be via the Rosebank Rd / Western Springs / Maioro St interchanges. Hopefully some of the through traffic will be diverted to the motorway, especially with the 4 laning of Tiverton / Wolverton over the next 2 years. Modelling has shown that congestion on Gt Nth Rd waterview will remain.
Ten years ago I would have supported this project but now the sun is well and truly setting on the age of the motorway. It’s too late in the day to be building something like this, but I guess the horse has already bolted (sorry for the mixed metaphors!). I’m sure we could put the money they’re spending on this concrete snake towards something that better meets the needs of Auckland 15 or 20 years down the track. Just imagine what we could do if they canned this project and the Holiday Highway! Crikey, with a budget like that we’d be within striking distance of both the CRL and the Airport link. It’s a real shame. The video is very nice though.
Agreed.
More Motorways get nothing but a big yawn from me. Some alternatives please.
After this I never want to see another motorway built in Auckland again.
Quote from the video : “Australasia’s biggest road tunnel (14m diameter)”
Isn’t that Waterview interchange awesome! I can’t see how the claim of “4 levels” of ramps works out — I can only count 3 in the video. Manukau Interchange has 3 levels so I guess this had to 1-up!
Imagine what we could have if 1 years worth of motorway budget was spent on public transport.
Anyway this project really is needed. It will set up the motorway system in Auckland for the next 50 years (no exaggeration) and balance the motorway network off SH1. As much as I like trains, this motorway project is not a bad thing. But I can’t see any motorway projects after this as being anywhere near as vital.
4 levels – Gt Nth Rd – existing SH16 – SH20 to SH16 ramp west – SH20 to SH16 ramp east
Far out the tunnels are huge!
I don’t get how they calculate 15 minutes quicker to the CBD. The “timer” at 0:48 is already at 5 minutes by the time the new motorway starts…
wow that’s a big job! I’m sold, the video was too cool. Impressive how it’s not a problem to spend a huge amount of money to save 5 minutes for a journey to the airport once a month but it’s a nonsense to spend on the CRL to save 5 minutes everyday
It’s the music. It’s mesmerising. Makes it seem like a good idea.
Just by the by- how many of y’all here are presenting at the AT long term plan hearings next week?
15 Minutes quicker is absolute bollocks, currently is about 15-18 minutes from queenstown road offramp to city centre (on a good run), and going from Royal oak (queenstown offramp), past Mt roskill and pt chev to town, is going to take a lot longer than 3 minutes
Also noticed as the camera was panning over the map, the route seemed to move…
I don’t know much about tunnels but I hope having one that long doesn’t increase the possibility of vehicle accidents. A pile up or fire would be horrific. Would be great to see an airport rail link.
‘The Well-Connected Alliance’. And we wonder why roading construction costs are out of control in New Zealand.
Phaark me this is a rich country! Well that’s it then, we’re done. Motorways in Auckland all finished. A few tweaks, maintenance, and now it’s time to invest in the complementary non road systems.
I love the 15 min time saving to get to the CMJ: (were it true, at 3am perhaps, speeding) Ha!, then what?, sit there for half and hour. Every new bit of distant motorway focused on this junction is adding to it’s inevitable failure. Foolish megalomaniacal attempt to ‘solve’ congestion. It can’t be done with road building. One mode to rule them all!
Still at least there’s the upper harbour aspect to this gigantism, that will, you’d hope, take pressure off the clogged aorta at the heart of our sadly highway-molested city.
Well until rising petrol price keep the undeserving off the road [and out of a job], sweet.
Will be glad when it is finished, at last. Every improvement everywhere in the network helps, whether travelling by bus or by car, or truck or van, as of course so many people do.
First thought that comes to mind:
Its the latest horror movie from the “Well Connected Alliance” film studio, a spin off of the RoNS PPP Conglomerate.
Its a bad remake of a mash up between cult favourite movie “The Southern Motorway and the CMJ” and “The Empire Strike Back”.
This is called “The Motorway Connection: Part2 – The planners strike back”, comes with the tag line,
“and this time its even more personal (transport oriented)”.
To be serious though, why can’t they cover the motorway south of the tunnel to hide it even more and the Waterview connectino is going to “the second largest motorway interchange in Australasia”TM when its completed.
Don’t care what the video says – nothing good will come from this project. You can’t untangle a knot by adding more rope to it.
“and this time its even more personal (transport oriented)”
Gold!
The boasting about the scale, sort of weird. So it doesn’t occur to them to wonder how those bigger and richer cities in Australia get by with out this kind of spending…? Could it be that they do something else over there that means they don’t have to? Reeks of ‘big car; small dick’ syndrome….inferiority complex, much? Or are they just trying to keep their minister all boyishly excited; spaying his shorts?
I agree Greg N. Why can’t more of this motorway be covered?
I’m usually anti roading projects as it just puts more cars on roads causing congestion elsewhere. But I do see this project as beneficial. If I could chose an order of big projects for Auckland it would be:
Ameti
City rail tunnel – with all the proposed stations built.
Dome Valley tidy up of high accident corners (not the proposed holiday highway)
Halfmoon bay ferry terminal upgrade.
Waterview tunnel
Airport Rail loop (Onehunga to Southern line)
Interesting how motorways “grow by stealth”. That is, you start with a grand plan for motorways everywhere, knowing full well that the business case abjectly fails to stack up. So you build a little bit and join its ends into existing roads. The traffic naturally floods onto it and immediately causes worse problems on the existing roads that it feeds into. So on comes the pressure to build a bit more, to “improve” the traffic-blighted environment and save motorists a minute or two, regardless of the real value of this or whether it will ever translate into real income to help build it. And finally, there remains that “missing link”; the one massively expensive bit that apparently will solve everything!
Well if only railways could be built like this: How about running those trains out through the front of Britomart and along the streets up to Mt Eden. Let them create as much havoc and misery as possible so that everyone screams for a tunnel to be built. . , fill in the missing link. . , money no object. After all, this is how the road system develops. Extension by extortion.
And so we end up with a motorway “solution” that has actually made matters worse and so the sheeple bleat for another motorway to help relieve the first one, always striving to complete that elusive “missing link”. But now the transport mix has becomes massively polarised towards cars, causing widespread problems everywhere. So what is the answer? Build more motorways of course, More “RONs”, (Morons)!
Alternatively go and visit some other cities which have avoided this trap and find out how they did it. Usually this will involve a big commitment to developing and extending rail.
The buggers have spent all that money on a video just to try and move a ventilation stack. Where its mandated to be and the size/shape agreed on is the right one. Their proposed alternative is a no-go. The stack will be bigger and the reason they want to put it there is that its easier to link the feeder pipes to it. As per usual, they want it easy and dont care that it will be an eyesore. All of us better make sure that the ventilation stack stays where its mandated to be and in the shape/size its supposed to be.
Totally agree with the rest of you that this motorway extention is a complete waste of money as it will not save anyone time getting into the city from the airport.
Suburban Rail is the only way to go but NZ being NZ, we just ‘have to finish’ the motorway system planned from years ago first and see all the resulting snarl ups the ‘completed system’ still causes before rail gets thrown a serious wad of cash.