Watch Live: NZTA Brings Up-to-Date Information on Harbor Bridge Repairs as Auckland’s Suffer Day 1 of Stagnation

Work could begin on the repair of Auckland’s Harbor Bridge from Tuesday evening and repair steel has arrived from Taranaki.

Waka Kotahi NZ Transportation Agency General Manager for Transportation Brett Gliddon said they expected work to take two to three nights and southbound lanes would be closed between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Once the workaround was in place, they would run “real live tests” before opening two additional lanes later this week.

The detour route as the southbound lanes of the Harbor Bridge were closed overnight was the Western Ring Route.

He said they weren’t going to open until it was safe to do so, so they were undergoing a third independent peer review.

NZTA was dedicating a large amount of resources to repair the bridge.

The strut was half screwed in and I was going to unscrew the second bottom piece and put in some new steel.

The challenge with the permanent fit was lifting the bridge and putting some stress on it. They had to make sure that when they put in the new strut it didn’t affect the dynamics of the rest of the bridge.

NZTA was being warned and so they had closed the center lanes until the replacement steel was placed.

Gliddon said they were making really good progress on both temporary and permanent solutions.

The NZTA continued to urge people to work from home for the next few days or use public transportation, as heavy congestion was expected for some time.

He said there was a good postponement of traffic from the port bridge, 30% less to the north and 60% to the south; there was still severe congestion throughout the city.

Traffic problems

On the first day of the week after two trucks were brought down by high winds on Friday that damaged the central span of the bridge, he was met with frustration from motorists when the freeway came to a standstill, and in some cases, his trip took four times. more time.

The considerable delays have prompted NZTA to ask motorists who came out of the city’s second lockdown three weeks ago to consider staying home or traveling off-peak.

Only four lanes on the bridge are open and this is expected to remain that way for several weeks so that temporary repairs can be made.

This means that the bridge will operate at half its normal capacity, pushing traffic onto the western ring route and other state and local highways.

NZTA has been advising people if they should travel to avoid rush hours in the morning and evening and to allow for additional travel time.

Travelers reported painful trips in which they crawled from the North Shore to the city with a Torbay resident who said the trip took him two hours and 35 minutes.

At 7:30 a.m. M., The usual 17 minute journey from Silverdale to Auckland CBD took 1 hour and 7 minutes.

A bus priority system is being introduced ahead of peak traffic tonight. The priority lane will run on State Highway 1 heading north to the Auckland Harbor Bridge and aims to reduce congestion for buses traveling to the North Shore and provide more reliable travel for customers.

This bus priority system will allow buses to access the northbound SH1 entrance ramp on Fanshawe Stt using the new priority lane and bypassing queuing traffic.

This priority lane on the freeway will merge with general state highway traffic.

While the priority lane is in operation, the northbound entrance ramp from Curran St to SH1 is closed to traffic and motorists will be diverted to the northbound entrance ramp from Fanshawe St.

Auckland Transport has assured people that there is a lot of capacity in public transport with trains, buses and ferries capable of carrying more passengers.

Additional buses will also operate during off-peak hours.

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