KEY POINTS:
Auckland City Council is planning $5 million of improvements to a key intersection to ease traffic flows between the Mt Roskill motorway and Eden Park in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
The council's transport committee yesterday cleared the way for land purchase negotiations for an extra traffic lane to be added to each leg of the cramped and dangerous intersection of Mt Albert and Sandringham Rds, which has poor sight-lines across an east-west ridge.
Although most of the extra space required for road-widening will be on territory already designated for transport, the council will still have to negotiate with residents to buy 2.5m-3m strips of that land along 20 property fronts.
Most of the purchases will be along Mt Albert Rd, although seven will be north of the intersection, on each side of Sandringham Rd.
The only undesignated land needed will be around an electricity substation owned by Vector on the southeastern corner.
Council roads manager Matthew Rednall said last night that taking land from the substation would avoid any need to remove parking bays in front of what he called an important set of shops on the opposite side of Sandringham Rd.
He said the project had been on the drawing board for some years to offset extra traffic flows from the $195 million motorway extension of State Highway 20, which Transit NZ intends opening early in 2009 between Queenstown Rd in Onehunga and New Windsor.
Transit will extend Sandringham Rd up a hill to a roundabout at the end of the motorway, allowing traffic a more direct route from the airport to Eden Park and central Auckland.
Plans for the international rugby gala in 2011 have lent the project even higher priority in the eyes of the council.
The council committee yesterday gave a green light for the report to be sent to the Eden-Albert and Mt Roskill community boards, and for public open days to be held next month.
