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The harbour bridge is Auckland's biggest paint job and will never truly be finished.
For 50 years, the battleship-grey structure has graced Auckland's skyline and every day a team of workers scale its steel cage-like structure under the road, sandblasting rust and repainting it with three coats.
Bula Patopato is one of the 160 bridge maintenance crew. He wears a harness, hard hat and protective glasses and said the men always worked in pairs for safety.
Day and night, workers are moving the new steel support beams into place, welding, painting on strong-smelling urethane and sandblasting the bridge year round.
Safety manager Lee Busby points out that the bridge has some unique working conditions. Workers under the clip-on structure need to be aware that the road can drop by as much as half a metre as heavy traffic roars overhead.
Each worker goes through an induction process before being allowed on to the bridge.
Mr Busby said the hollowed-out work area inside the clip-on structures are treated as "a confined space" and air quality is maintained through ventilation systems.
"When the bridge was built 50 years ago, there were some aspects that don't meet today's safety standards.
"You're probably familiar with some older buildings in America where you see the guys on a 90-storey skyscraper all sitting along a beam having lunch and they've got no protection at all. It's a bit like that here. There are some areas that are closed off because they are unsafe and others where we're in the process of upgrading to make them safe for today's working conditions," Mr Busby said.
A fall to the water from the bridge, 64m at its highest, would be like hitting concrete.
Workers also undergo blood tests to monitor lead in their blood.
Mr Busby said that when the clip-ons were added in 1969, they were painted with lead-based paint which is now being disturbed by sandblasting.
But a $45 million structural strengthening project, which began last year, goes largely unnoticed by the average 165,000 drivers crossing the bridge each day.
By the end of September next year, 760 tonnes of extra steel bracing will have been added to the two clip-ons.
The roading surface is also being upgraded. Each night two lanes of the bridge are closed off to allow work to be carried out on the bridge surface and are opened up again by 6am for peak traffic.
Transport Agency northern operations manager Joseph Flanagan said the work finished in time for the barrier changer to shift the 2000 1m-long barriers in 20 minutes.
That allowed for five lanes of traffic heading into the city and three lanes heading to the North Shore.
At about 10am the lanes were brought back to a four-four configuration before the process began again at about 3.30pm to change the lanes to a five-three configuration for North Shore-bound traffic in the evening peak period.
Mr Flanagan said agency staff monitored the traffic levels through CCTV cameras on the bridge. They were also able to monitor wind and weather, alerting drivers to any hazards by using electronic signs on the side of the motorway.
The police also play a role. Inspector Dave Walker, based at the motorway policing centre in Northcote, said police attended breakdowns and drivers who had run out of petrol.
He would like to see an instant fine of $250 for drivers who run out of fuel on the bridge, because those breakdowns were avoidable.
He said tourists had been known to pull over and photograph the bridge and city.
Mr Walker said there had also been some head-on crashes with drink-drivers driving the wrong-way on the motorway.
He said the motorway was a key link on State Highway 1 and any breakdown or accident needed to be cleared quickly because the only possible detour was through Upper Harbour. But the days of the Auckland Harbour Bridge being the key Waitemata crossing are numbered.
Agency regional director Wayne McDonald described the bridge as the "umbilical chord linking Northland to Auckland" and said the clip-ons had up to 40 years of life left, compared with at least another 50 years expected from the original structure.
He expected that by the time the clip-ons were removed, a tunnel under Waitemata Harbour should be ready.
* Auckland Harbour Bridge: 50 Years of a City Icon
The New Zealand Herald covered the bridge story from the beginning.
Today its rich photographic store of the bridge's moods, its construction, and its striking presence is celebrated in a new book, Auckland Harbour Bridge: 50 Years of a City Icon.
Author Renee Lang delved into the treasure trove and brings to life a fascinating history with more than 100 images.
The book is available at most bookstores, $24.99 (Random House) or you can contact the New Zealand Herald photosales department to order a copy: email, photosales@nzherald.co.nz or phone 09 373 6093.
