Work on busway interchange begins

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Work has begun on key links needed to unclog Auckland's transport network - in a $38 million motorway interchange upgrade at the gateway to the long-awaited North Shore busway.

Thousands of drainage holes were being drilled into marine mud below Esmonde Rd yesterday as Associate Transport Minister Judith Tizard and North Shore Mayor George Wood stood on higher ground turning ceremonial first sods on the project.

The interchange has existed for almost 40 years, but in severely stunted form, as it has until now lacked north-pointing ramps.

It could only receive motorway traffic from the south or feed vehicles from Takapuna through a congested artery towards the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Takapuna residents have been unable to use the interchange to head north along the motorway, or to drive west to get to Akoranga Drive or the Auckland University of Technology's bustling North Shore campus.

All that is about to change, with a duplicate bridge set to be built across the motorway, to take pedestrians and cyclists as well as two north-facing on-ramps and southbound on and off ramps.

"We are turning what is a quarter interchange into a complete interchange," said Transit New Zealand's acting chief executive, Rick van Barneveld, of a project which is expected to take about two years to complete after a gestation period of more than two decades.

At the same time, North Shore City Council will spend about $10 million including Government subsidies to widen Esmonde Rd right back from the interchange to its terminal junction with Lake Rd in Takapuna.

The project is also an important entree for the ambitious $229 million North Shore dual-lane busway proposal, from which southbound buses will run under the interchange towards Auckland.

Northbound buses will cross over the interchange to get to a proposed new Akoranga bus station, the southernmost of a string of five to be built in the next three years between there and Albany to feed into the 8.5km busway.

Mr van Barneveld said it was fitting that the interchange was the first major project to start under the new Land Transport Management Act, which called for an integrated approach to transport planning attuned to social and environmental sustainability as well as economic progress.

"This is particularly appropriate as it makes better use of the motorway corridor and is a way to use roads to meet the aspirations of the community," he said, in a ceremony introduced by Ngati Whatua iwi representatives.

Although a small slice of land had to be acquired from the AUT, new vice-chancellor Professor Derek McCormack hailed the project as vital to improving connections between the many thousands of students at his institution and their host community.

Mr Wood welcomed the new links as essential for wringing more efficiency from costly transport assets, in which increasing vehicle occupancy was one of the simplest ways "to get more bang for the many, many bucks we spend on our roading infrastructure".

His city would spend $346 million over 10 years on transport projects but an example of simple solutions was enforcing a bus and car-pooling priority lane on Onewa Rd, for which North Shore won a national environmental award last week.