Editorial: Transport Agency results worthy of applause

Photo/ Martin Sykes.

Something is going right at the Transport Agency, which builds and runs our motorway system. It revealed this week that its project to build a new southbound viaduct across Newmarket - and create four lanes of the Southern Motorway to Greenlane - will finish six months early.

Across town, the bridge being built beside the Mangere Bridge on the South-western Motorway, and doubling that structure's capacity, is also half a year ahead and should open next month.

Both form part of the city's infrastructure improvements in advance of next year's rugby World Cup. Both had to be completed while accommodating heavy motorway traffic heading south or to the airport. And both have been achieved with tolerable disruption.

In an age of cost escalation and delays, the Transport Agency's motorway results should be applauded. While motorists have had to slow, nominally, to 70km/h through the Newmarket Viaduct part of the motorway for a short period, the gains of an extra lane will be lasting.

So far, so good. There is still the small matter of demolishing the old viaduct structure and building a new northbound segment to improve traffic flow and earthquake stability. The enormous blue gantry that has been used to build the southbound structure will move to the middle of the viaduct.

At Mangere, the 650m-long bridge will allow three lanes of traffic either way, as well as bus priority lanes. It promises real savings in time for those using that route from the city to the airport and back.

It must be a thankless business, planning and running motorways that are routinely choked to a crawl in peak hours, in which demand rises to meet capacity almost as the white lines are painted on the tarmac. In these two instances, the agency, its contractors and no doubt the weather have conspired to over-deliver.