Auckland Harbour Bridge

The Auckland Harbour Bridge is an eight-lane road bridge over the Waitemata Harbour in New Zealand. It connects the Saint Marys Bay in Auckland City with North Shore City. The total length of the structure is 1.15 km, the clear span of 243.8 m and the clear height 43.27 m. It is part of State Highway 1 from the city center in Auckland towards Orewa.

At peak times, the traffic on the bridge builds up very often, but this is a bottleneck on the connecting axis in the northern districts.

Building and construction

When the bridge did not exist, required the quickest way from Auckland to the North Shore to use the ferry. On the road, the ride only on the 40-km detour through West Auckland was possible.

The construction period for the creation of the bridge was four years, the bridge was opened on 30 May 1959 the Prime Minister Sidney Holland. She had two lanes in each direction. During construction, four deaths were to be deplored, for them, a memorial stone was erected at the northern bridge head.

First, the bridge was a toll road, with toll booths on the north side. On March 30, 1984, the toll requirement was abolished and eliminated the toll booths.

The four-lane bridge was no longer cope with the traffic soon, by the rapid growth of the neighborhoods on the north coast had to be enlarged the capacity of the bridge. 1969 were added to built on both sides of the bridge, two tracks, so that the bridge is now eight lanes. For this special bridge segments were built by a Japanese company, which could be attached to the side. Their life was given as 50 years, due to damage should be replaced while possibly however.

Further increase in traffic density

Traffic control measures

As the traffic intensity is strongly depending on the time, a control system has been installed so that the center two lanes of traffic are always used according to the main direction of traffic. This means that five tracks for the southward transport in the direction of Auckland can be used for the morning rush hour always, and in the afternoon five tracks for the northward transport. At all other times, the tracks are divided equally.

For many years was the control over the center above the roadway mounted light signals. In the late 1980s there were a number of head-on collisions, therefore a movable concrete barrier was installed in 1990, with the traffic control in accordance with the current -to-use lanes can be done. This barrier is automatically placed four times a day each to one lane, the whole process takes 40 minutes.

Future plans

Despite the expansion of the bridge and traffic control measures, this is still a bottleneck, not least because of the increasing colonization of northern parts of the city of Auckland. Thus the need for a further port crossing increases.

There are several plans that include the construction of a new bridge adjacent to the existing, a tunnel or a combination of both. 1996, a detailed feasibility study has been conducted, currently a new bridge about 500 meters west of the existing or include a tunnel just east of it. A final decision has not yet been taken, probably due to the immense costs and the urban impact in the environment of this project.

Pictures of Auckland Harbour Bridge

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