After years of design work from the ashes of the ditched plan for a $4 billion Eastern Highway, which would have crossed Hobson Bay to central Auckland, the only visible results have been intersection improvements at the end of the Southeastern Highway.
But a stern hurry-up message from the Auckland Transport board in December has made planners determined to make a bigger splash, starting with the bridge replacement, which is needed to make room for the $1 billion rail electrification project.
The council-controlled organisation says it expects to award larger contracts by the end of the year, including for a new road between Mt Wellington Highway and Glen Innes, to take pressure off Panmure's difficult roundabout before it is replaced by a new intersection after 2014.
Mountain Rd will also be diverted away from the roundabout to feed into Jellicoe Rd, and there will be upgrades at the railway station to accommodate the new road, which will run beneath the station's western side and the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway.
The station improvements will include an interchange so passengers can transfer to trains from a busway to be built from Pakuranga, and Morrin Rd, north of Panmure, will be widened to four lanes between Fraser and Tainui Rds.
Construction is expected to start early next year on a new bridge over the railway line to give buses access to the interchange, and a replacement bridge just to the south of that, on the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway.
Rolling start
Starting next month:
Replacement road bridge over rail on Mountain Rd, Panmure.
Starting early next year:
Replacement road bridge over rail on Ellerslie-Panmure Highway.
* New bridge just to the north of the highway, giving buses access to planned transport interchange at Panmure railway station.
* New road from Mt Wellington Highway to Glen Innes running through a trench under Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and railway station environs.
* Diversion of Mountain Rd from Panmure roundabout to Jellicoe St.
