Mangere Bridge welders beat rain

Mangere Bridge reopened to northbound traffic earlier than expected yesterday, after workers beat the arrival of heavy rain to finish welding heavy expanding joints to its deck.

The northbound lanes were reopened at 8.40am, three hours ahead of schedule.

Transit NZ is thankful it avoided a repeat of major traffic jams which torpedoed the start of a $2 million joint replacement project last month, and praises motorists for heeding pleas to stay away from the area if possible.

Traffic kept moving, if at only a crawl at times, along three detours from the airport, although northbound lanes of the Southern Motorway from Manukau were packed for much of Saturday for a variety of reasons, including a crash and several large entertainment events.

Northern operations manager Joseph Flanagan emphasised the project was still only at the halfway mark, with three more 10-tonne joints to be fitted over the next two weekends, starting again at midnight on Friday.

He said the next closure would be complicated by the use of northbound lanes for southbound traffic, so motorists heading to the airport should still allow longer to get there.

Rain is likely to delay resurfacing work on a kilometre of another critical Auckland traffic route, Hillsborough Rd, from which motorists heading for Mangere Bridge are being diverted through suburban streets.