$6.5m plan to untangle traffic

By SCOTT MacLEOD transport reporter

Road managers are paying $6.5 million for a Spaghetti Junction "master plan" that they hope will ease traffic jams on Auckland motorways.

Transit New Zealand said yesterday that it had given Auckland firm Sinclair Knight Merz a year to draw up improvements for the junction.

The news came during a busy day for Auckland transport, as the region struck a ground-breaking deal with Tranz Rail and city leaders urged Government ministers to help solve traffic woes.



Spaghetti Junction is the tangled web of roads in Central Auckland where the Northern, Southern and Northwestern motorways meet in a daily clog of nearly 200,000 vehicles.



The consultants have been told to find ways of easing traffic jams, especially in the afternoon rush hours.

A key feature will involve re-routing and widening the Southern Motorway by making a new three-lane section from the Karangahape Rd bridge to Khyber Pass.

Other changes will include a new link between the Northern and Northwestern motorways, a link between the Northern Motorway and Grafton Gully, and switching the Southern Motorway's Nelson St off-ramp from the fast lane to the slow lane.

Transit regional manager Wayne McDonald said the planners would look at 27 aspects of the junction, including traffic, noise, water, geometrics, safety and resource management.

Construction would start by 2002 if enough cash was available and the plans were approved in time.

Officials at Tranz Rail and the Auckland Regional Council yesterday signed papers that will allow the city to forge ahead with a deal to use train routes for public transport.

Under the deal, local councils will pay Tranz Rail $112 million to cede control of its Auckland rail routes. Tranz Rail will then pay back $2 million a year to use the lines for freight trains.

The papers signed yesterday changed an earlier deal struck in June. The new deal gives the city control of the main trunk line.



Part of yesterday's agreement was to reach full settlement by July 4 next year.

The city hopes that Government agency Transfund will pledge $35 million towards the deal on July 2.

After the signing, city mayors met Transport Minister Mark Gosche and Auckland affairs minister Judith Tizard in Waitakere, where the rail deal was high on the agenda.

The mayors refused to give details of the talks. ARC transport committee chairman Les Paterson said on Thursday that he would use the meeting to ask the ministers to back the deal.

Herald Online feature: Getting Auckland moving

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