Quicker trip to airport as motorway opens today

Drivers from many parts of Auckland will be offered faster trips to the airport from this afternoon, after the formal opening of a long-awaited extension of the Southwestern Motorway through Mt Roskill.

But they will have to wait until next week for a clear return run, as the 4.5km road is being opened in two stages.

Traffic will, from 3pm today, have free passage along the eastbound lanes of the $201 million motorway, from either of two feeder routes, Maioro St in New Windsor and a newly-built extension of Sandringham Rd.

Westbound lanes from Queenstown Rd above Onehunga Bay are not due to open until at least Monday, however, as the Transport Agency wants to ensure efficient flows through the feeder intersections before giving drivers open slather.

Even then, rain may delay a full opening, as clear weather is needed for new road markings on westbound ramps.

But that will not stop Transport Minister Steven Joyce cutting a ribbon to mark the motorway's official opening today, almost four years after construction began.

Although the extension is the third new stretch of state highway in or near Auckland he has been able to open since inheriting the transport portfolio from Labour, it has been almost 20 years since the Southern Motorway reached Hillsborough Rd from Onehunga.

Its completion comes as the Transport Agency begins a round of consultations before extending the road a further 4.5km, to join the Northwestern Motorway at Waterview as the final link in the western ring route.

Transport Agency northern director Wayne McDonald expected it to take significant traffic loads off local routes such as Hillsborough Rd, and "rat runs" through neighbouring suburbs.

But until a full harbour-to-harbour motorway link could be completed by about 2015, he said congestion would simply be transferred further west, to local roads through Avondale, Mt Albert and Waterview.