Motorway tender winner to be known today

Source: NZ Transport agency. Photo / Herald graphic

Auckland should have five big motorway links under construction from November, when contractors will begin the Victoria Park tunnel project costing up to $430 million.

The winning tender for the northbound tunnel and widening of the motorway between the park and harbour bridge will be announced this morning by Prime Minister John Key and Transport Minister Steven Joyce.

The announcement will be made at the Birdcage Tavern, a historic watering hole which will be moved to make way for the diggers.

Mr Joyce would not yesterday disclose details of the contract, which he estimated in April would cost $400 million to $430 million, except to indicate high confidence that the range would not be exceeded.

But he said the project was expected to be brought forward by two more months, allowing the motorway widening work to begin in November and the "cut and cover" tunnel early next year.

That follows an earlier acceleration of the start date by 10 months to January, under a Government decision to boost state highway construction spending by almost $1 billion over three years and to nominate the tunnel as one of seven roads of national significance.

The minister said the contract would begin with an on-site workforce of about 120, before rising to 300 at the peak of the four-year project, as well as providing other jobs in the construction supply chain.

Although acknowledging its relatively modest contribution to job creation in a region where unemployment has leapt from fewer than 5000 to almost 20,000 people in 12 months, he said such infrastructure projects were needed to improve productivity and to contribute to an early recovery from the recession.

The traffic chokepoint on the existing Victoria Park viaduct rather than the harbour bridge was the main limiting factor on Auckland's central motorway network, so easing congestion for the more than 100,000 vehicles using it each day was important in improving the region's productivity.

"One of the important things to do for that is to ease the transport bottlenecks and get people and freight moving around more effectively," Mr Joyce said. "Jobs like this are not the whole answer, but they do help and are all part of getting Auckland more confident and feeling positive about growing again."

As well as effectively doubling the capacity of the road corridor through Victoria Park, by allowing all four viaduct lanes to be used by southbound traffic heading from the bridge to Auckland and beyond, the project will include the addition of one more lane in each direction to the motorway along St Mary's Bay.

Mr Joyce noted that the Transport Agency was already overseeing four other big Auckland motorway projects, including the $215 million Newmarket Viaduct replacement and various links along the western ring route.