KEY POINTS:
Disruption from the $41 million upgrade of Queen St will get worse before it gets better - and it will be March next year before pedestrians and retailers fully reclaim the work site.
In the next fortnight, work that has reduced the block between Wellesley and Victoria Sts to one lane will be extended to the biggest stage, between Victoria and Customs Sts.
This is part of a juggling act by Auckland City Council to finish the two-year project as quickly as possible.
Central business district project leader Jo Wiggins yesterday said the biggest disruption would come between now and August when stage two between Wellesley and Victoria Sts and stage three between Victoria and Customs Sts were both on the go.
Work building tree pits, laying kerbing, paving and installing light poles and street furniture on stage two was due for completion in August.
An extra team of 20 workers had speeded up work on stage two, which was four to six weeks ahead of schedule, she said.
Jo Wiggins said the upgrade, which started in January last year at the time of the so-called "Queen St massacre" of 20 exotic trees, was due to be finished at the end of March next year.
Seventy of the 77 trees - some more than 30 years old and up to 15m tall - between Wellesley St and Customs St are being chopped down and replaced with 95 new trees to create an avenue of liquidambars, interplanted with natives.
Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney said the council had been extremely collaborative and responsive to retailers' needs, who accepted there was going to be disruption to provide an improved and more pedestrian-friendly Queen St.
Smith & Caughey executive director Terry Cornelius said the council had kept the department store advised of work well in advance.
He said the council arranged to stop work outside the store for the duration of its summer sale.
Business had not been affected.
Louis Vuitton general manager Mark Browne was impressed by the council's efforts to let the fashion store know what was happening.
"Of course it's painful and it's noisy and it's dusty but it's for the betterment of the street so we all have to tough through it."
The council and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority have taken a hands-off approach to traffic management in Queen St. The general idea has been to do nothing, let motorists get a taste of traffic jams and thereafter avoid the Golden Mile like the plague.
But it has affected bus passengers. Buses meant to take seven minutes from the bottom of Queen St to Karangahape Rd are taking up to 20 minutes.
Auckland City transport general manager Dr Stephen Rainbow said the council was concentrating on improving Queen St for pedestrians with measures such as count-down pedestrian crossings at the two main intersections.
Other measures included a "greenwave" so pedestrians could walk the length of Queen St with synchronised green-light crossings.
