KEY POINTS:
Auckland City officials have spentseveral months planning an ambitious "traffic management" exercise in the New Year to allow contractors to remodel one of the busiest intersections.
The Harp of Erin in Greenlane will be transformed from a difficult and sprawling five-point intersection into a series of three T-junctions early next month, in what the council says is a bid to reduce queuing and allow freer-flowing traffic, particularly buses.
Relocated signals will keep traffic queues further back from the intersection, to reduce holdups after the lights change, and new pedestrian crossings will be installed across the heads of Main Highway and Great South Rd.
Although Great South Rd has been widened in that sector to provide greater carrying capacity, primarily for buses, a long landscaped strip will be built along the centre of the intersection to realign flows from Main Highway and from Campbell Rd in the opposing direction.
The impact of Wairakei St on the intersection will be reduced by banning traffic from turning right into Great South Rd, and advance boxes will be provided at four sets of traffic lights from which cyclists will gain a head start on other vehicles.
Two new crossings will also be installed just north of the intersection, at the junction of Woodbine Ave and Great South Rd, to make it safer for pedestrians to reach bus-stops on new bus-priority lanes.
But to attain their goal of balancing better longer-term traffic flows with safer pedestrian movements, the council and its contractors face a major challenge to complete that section of their $26 million Project Greenlane upgrade between January 6 and 12, to take advantage of the holiday period.
Although there will only be one full planned closure of the intersection, from 8pm on January 7 to 6am the next day, traffic will be reduced to one lane at all other times and subject to manual stop-go directions at night.
That has prompted the council to plan an elaborate series of detour routes, particularly for the night of the full closure, but also in case of any major holdups at other times.
Council transport infrastructure delivery group manager Tim Lott said the work had been planned in hourly blocks throughout the six-day exercise, and several layers of contingency plans could be drawn on in case of bad weather.
Mr Lott said the intersection was part of Auckland City's busiest transport interchange, through which 55,000 vehicles passed on an average working day. The volume was expected to be half that during the remodelling work, although the council did not want to discourage people travelling to Greenlane car yards or other local destinations.
Project Greenlane, which is centred on widening Great South Rd for bus lanes and improvements to its even busier intersection with Greenlane East and Greenlane West, has had a tortuous history since work began early in 2006.
Although Transit NZ completed associated improvements to its Greenlane motorway interchange early this year for just under $5 million, the council faced a $14 million cost blowout amid wrangling with landowners, difficult volcanic ground conditions, unidentified service lines and recruitment and retention problems in its project management team.
Mr Lott, who was appointed just over a year ago from the construction industry, said he had recruited enough staff to ensure there was no lack of skills and his priority was to help to restore the council's reputation.
TRAFFIC UPGRADE
* January 6-7. Traffic down to one lane. Day: traffic lights; night: stop-go operation.
* January 7-8 (overnight). Full road closure 8pm-6am.
* January 8-12. Traffic down to one lane. Day: traffic lights; night: stop-go. TRAFFIC
