KEY POINTS:
Commuters are in for weeks of disruption to one of Auckland's busiest arterial routes from Monday, when a 1km stretch of Hillsborough Rd through Lynfield will close to eastbound traffic.
That means those heading from West Auckland or Blockhouse Bay to Onehunga or Manukau should consider leaving home earlier than normal as Auckland City Council contractors start rebuilding Hillsborough Rd between White Swan Rd and Kings Haven Close, past the Lynfield shopping centre.
The council says contractors are expected to take nine weeks working 24 hours a day to complete the job, although work will stop between the middle of next month and early January to avoid disruption over Christmas.
That will give some relief to Lynfield retailers, including a Countdown supermarket, which face losing trade from eastbound traffic.
A detour will be marked out from Monday along White Swan Rd - where the council hopes traffic restrictions from months of work by Vector contractors around the Mt Roskill electricity substation will be lifted by Sunday night - east down Richardson Rd, and south along the Dominion Rd extension back to Hillsborough Rd.
Large numbers of vehicles will converge on a roundabout at the intersection with the Dominion Rd extension at the Roskill South shops, scene of traffic chaos in March when council contractors began digging up the other end of Hillsborough Rd in a $1.3 million reconstruction project.
But city projects manager Tony Kay said the council had learned immeasurably from that operation and had hired a team of traffic management experts who had worked on the central motorway junction improvements, to keep disruption to a minimum this time.
He said the Roskill South roundabout had been modified to cope with two lanes of traffic, and the council was preparing to prohibit on-road parking in some areas if needed.
"We have learned a lot from what we didn't get right last time," Mr Kay said.
Bus company Stagecoach indicated confidence that the council had learned its lesson and adopted a higher standard of traffic management and contingency for the latest roadworks.
Stagecoach believes it will have to make only a small adjustment to its citybound 267 service from Lynfield, using either James Tyler Cres or Stanton Cres to get around the eastern end of the road closure.
But it still expects considerable delays to services running from Blockhouse Bay and up White Swan Rd, already a busy route at the best of times.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic at peak times along Hillsborough Rd was a major impetus for Transit NZ to build a $195 extension of the Southwestern Motorway, due to open in 2009 through 4km of Mt Roskill to New Windsor.
Mr Kay said the council needed to maintain Hillsborough Rd to a high standard and could not wait until 2009 for such important repairs.
