Auckland Regional Office

29 September 2003

MEDIA RELEASE

Start next month on new Upper Harbour motorway

Work on the northernmost section of the Western Ring Route, that will significantly help alleviate congestion on State Highway 1 by enabling traffic to bypass the Harbour Bridge and Auckland city, will begin next month (October).

After an intense tendering process, Transit New Zealand has awarded the construction contract for the Greenhithe section of the 15km Upper Harbour Corridor (SH18) – providing a 4-lane motorway between North Shore City and Waitakere City - to Works Infrastructure.

Scheduled for completion midway through 2007, the $95M project will see the construction of the eastern section of motorway, stretching 5km from Paul Mathews Drive in Albany to the Greenhithe end of the Upper Harbour Bridge.

Work on the $37M Upper Harbour Bridge and causeway duplication, to accommodate the new motorway, has already started and is due to be completed in 2006.

The final section of the $250M Upper Harbour Corridor project, which will see the motorway extended a further 5 km from the Upper Harbour Bridge, through Hobsonville to the Northwestern Motorway (SH16), will follow when land purchase is completed and resource consents obtained.

Thereafter the final portion of the Upper harbour Corridor project, extending the Northwestern Motorway a further 5km from Westgate to Kumeu, will be constructed.

Transit Regional Manager, Wayne McDonald, says that when completed the Upper Harbour Corridor will provide a safer and less congested connection between Waitakere and the North Shore. “This is particularly important in light of the extensive commercial and residential development taking place in the part of the Auckland region,” he says.

“This is another reason why it is so important to complete the Western Ring Route that will link SH18, SH16 and SH20 to provide a real alternative to SH1 between the North Shore and Manukau. Only when this happens will we see any real alternative to the chronic traffic congestion we are experiencing on the Northern and Southern motorways.”

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