Mangere Bridge repairs postponed

Heavy repairs to Auckland's Mangere Bridge have been delayed for a month to avoid a repeat of last weekend's mammoth traffic jams which spread congestion through much of Manukau City.

Transit New Zealand, which had already decided to postpone work from this weekend in view of the mayhem, announced last night it would wait until March 24 before resuming a bridge joint replacement programme costing almost $2 million.

Contractors managed to replace the first of six 10-tonne joints faster than expected last Saturday, allowing them to reopen the bridge's two northbound lanes the next morning, rather than keeping them closed all weekend.

But fierce criticism of their traffic management performance, which left thousands of motorists unaware of detour provisions before finding themselves stuck in queues on the Southwestern Motorway and surrounding roads, has led to a radical re-think.

Transit operations general manager Roly Frost said although the agency would still have to close both northbound lanes on five weekends from March 24, rather than risk disrupting airport traffic by rationing southbound lanes, three detours would be used next time.

The northbound lanes would be closed only from each Friday night to Sunday morning, rather than throughout the weekends. He acknowledged that more traffic used the bridge on Saturdays than on Sundays, but said closing it over the latter part of each weekend raised too high a risk of serious disruption to Monday-morning traffic. 


Roading projects mean delays for motorists

Motorists can expect delays around several Auckland road projects in the coming days and weeks.

* Northern Motorway: From 8 o'clock tonight until Monday morning, the northbound exit to Takapuna and Akoranga Drive will be closed to prepare for the opening of a new off-ramp and a 60m duplicate bridge over the motorway.

From Monday traffic will use the bridge and a new road extension while the old bridge is upgraded to carry traffic along a new westbound connection between Takapuna and Akoranga Drive.

* Central city: From 7.30pm tomorrow to 6am on Monday, and every night after that until mid-March, Fanshawe St will be reduced to two traffic lanes between Beaumont St and Daldy St for resurfacing as part of a $16 million road-widening and bus-lane extension project.

* Mt Roskill: From Monday morning for about eight weeks, Hillsborough Rd will be closed to eastbound traffic between Whitmore Rd and Richardson Rd for a $1.3 million rebuilding and resurfacing project, which will extend later to a section between Olsen Ave and Goodall St.

The project will have a heavy impact on morning commuter traffic, which will be diverted down Whitmore Rd and up Richardson Rd to rejoin Hillsborough Rd.

Westbound traffic, heaviest in the evening peak, will face reduced speed limits.