KEY POINTS:
Auckland City engineers promise to remodel their busiest road interchange over the next few months by "nibbling" at it piece by piece, with little disruption to traffic.
City transport infrastructure delivery manager Tim Lott says most of the work on the intersection of Great South Rd with Greenlane East and Greenlane West will be done at night between now and the end of June, to reduce delays for the 65,000 vehicles passing through it daily.
That would be in contrast to a "big bang approach" taken over the holiday period for restructuring the nearby Harp of Erin intersection, another key part of the $32 million Project Greenlane in which Gt South Rd is also being widened to carry bus lanes.
Mr Lott said yesterday that the Harp of Erin work had to be completed quickly, because of the need to streamline what was a sprawling five-point intersection into four T-junctions.
He said a different approach was needed for the Greenlane intersection, given that it was the city's busiest set of crossroads.
"We will be nibbling at each corner - building it by stealth if you like - doing it at night and minimising disruption."
Footpaths and curbing will be improved, two pedestrian "islands" will be replaced with a safer controlled crossing, and shared off-road walking and cycling paths will be built for about 300m along Greenlane West.
Street furniture and better lighting will also be added and the intersection resealed towards the end of the project.
A raised median strip will also be extended along Greenlane East, to prevent vehicles from disrupting traffic by making u-turns, and similar features will be added to Greenlane West to stop right-turns from Maungakiekie Ave and Tawera Rd.
Mr Lott, who was put in charge of the project after a $13 million cost blowout which the council has blamed on "multiple systems failures" and poor management, said it was moving ahead faster than ever.
But its scheduled completion by June 30 will be nine months later than was expected when the project began early in 2006.
