KEY POINTS:
Transit New Zealand officials have taken Transport Minister Annette King on a tour of Auckland Harbour Bridge in an attempt to assure motorists its clip-on lanes are safe.
The public show, in front of a large media contingent, comes after an engineer's report said in extreme conditions buckling in the clip-on lanes could result in "catastrophic failure".
Ms King said motorists could be assured the bridge was safe but stopped short of giving a full guarantee that buckling of the clip-ons could not happen under extreme conditions.
Ms King said she was briefed about the $45 million upgrade Transit had earmarked for the bridge, work which would strengthen the clip-ons before embarking on the tour.
Ms King denied she had visited the bridge because she was worried about its safety, saying she was interested to see what Transit were doing given the sizeable amount of taxpayers' money being used.
Neither did she see any evidence of stress-fractures along the bridge, she said.
"The work that Transit is doing, they assure me it [the bridge] is safe."
Ms King said buckling of the steel bridge's clip-ons was not a "worst case" scenario.
"Something totally out of the blue and catastrophic would led to buckling of steel on this bridge.
"It's not that the bridge falls apart."
If a catastrophic event did occur on the bridge, Transit had advised there would be buckling of steel but it would not fall down, she said.
In May, Transit restricted the use of the outer clip-on lanes to vehicles under 13 tonnes which eased load pressures on the extensions by 20 per cent.
A by-law ensuring that vehicles complied with that restriction came into effect in July.
Heavy trucks were banned from the outside lanes for four years in the 1980s.
Transit chief executive Rick van Barneveld said there was no need to ban trucks on the bridge.
"The bridge can happily cope with trucks."
The upgrade was on-going work for the bridge which had annual checks and regular maintenance, he said.
- NZPA
