Auckland Harbor Bridge: NZTA Reveals Plan To Fix After Truck Accidents Destroy Four Lanes

The damaged giant strut on the Auckland Harbor Bridge will have to be completely removed, says New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.

Transportation Services Manager Brett Gliddon said today that the shattered 22m strut would have to be cut at the top and bottom, removed and a new part fabricated and installed in place.

He said that to do this they would have to put load back on that prop.

He said this would be achieved by using large jacks at the top and bottom and that the strut would be put back to work as it was supposed to and the load would be redistributed across the bridge.

Gliddon revealed details of the temporary fix that included cutting the damaged strut in half, fitting a new section of steel, and bolting it to the bridge at the bottom.

“It will allow us to open the main part of the bridge for light vehicles to circulate and if the load must pass through the strut, the new piece of steel will allow it to be transferred,” he said.

This meant that only a limited tier of vehicles could use the bridge near the repair.

Yesterday, Gliddon said that the temporary fix would take at least a week to implement.

It’s not yet clear how long it will take to manufacture the replacement strut and insert it into the bridge, but previous estimates put it at weeks.

Nightmare trip

It took a North Shore commuter two hours and 35 minutes to travel from a northern suburb to the city this morning.

Newstalk ZB news host Malcolm Jordan said he faced an astonishing level of traffic congestion.

For most of the journey from Torbay to the CBD, it was moving an inch every 10 minutes.

“I could have driven to Hamilton and back for the time it took me to get to work today,” he said.