By BERNARD ORSMAN
Driving the 26.7km eastern highway should be a breeze - but first you have to get on it at Quay St in central Auckland.
The consultants have yet to come up with a detailed plan of where and how the highway will merge with traffic heading along Tamaki Drive.
Once
you are on the new expressway, it will be a picturesque drive past Judges Bay and the Parnell Baths along a widened Tamaki Drive as far as the outboard boating club.
At this point the highway veers off across Hobson Bay and Orakei Basin parallel with the existing railway line.
Then it is up the narrow, bush-lined Purewa Creek, possibly on a road built over the railway to avoid the destruction of protected mangroves and the loss of homes.
A climb along the creek takes you to St Johns Rd, which will become a bridged road over the highway.
The drive then follows the railway line around the back of Mt Wellington to the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway.
At this point, the two dedicated bus lanes will leave the highway and go to Ti Rakau Drive in Pakuranga, via Lagoon Drive.
You will then take one of two options being explored to Waipuna Rd.
The first - and cheapest - option is down Mt Wellington Highway. The second is a road built alongside the railway line behind Mt Wellington Highway.
Once on Waipuna Rd the highway will connect with the widened Pakuranga Motorway bridge at a new intersection, providing eight lanes across the Tamaki River through to Ti Rakau Drive.
At another new intersection, the bus lanes will rejoin the six-lane highway for the drive along Ti Rakau Drive to Botany Town Centre.
The final drive will be the 8.2km straight stretch down Te Irirangi Drive to the Southern Motorway at Manukau.
Feature: Getting Auckland moving
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