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SH1 Victoria Park Tunnel

The Victoria Park Tunnel is the first of the seven roads of national significance to be built. It will address the last major bottleneck on the Auckland motorway system between Newmarket and the Auckland Harbour Bridge, resulting in safer and more reliable trips for 150,000 vehicles a day.

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Aerial view of the project area looking north..

Aerial view of the project area looking north.

Auckland

Project purpose

The Victoria Park Tunnel project will remove the last major traffic bottleneck on Auckland’s central motorway network and unlock the potential of other significant investment in recent years to improve travel reliability to and around the Auckland CBD.

The project was prioritised as a road of national significance, to support New Zealand’s economic growth and improve productivity by providing improved access to markets and jobs. The project is also delivering significant economic benefits during its construction by making maximum use of the local supply chain for supplies and services, with particular focus on import replacement and developing small and medium sized businesses.

Benefits

  • Improved motorway capacity and safety
  • Reduced congestion on Victoria Park viaduct
  • Reduced travel times for freight
  • Improved access to the Auckland CBD and Port
  • Bus priority improvements Harbour Bridge to CBD
  • Better pedestrian access from St Marys/Ponsonby to the CBD and Auckland waterfront
  • Two heritage buildings - Rob Roy Hotel and Campbell Free Kindergarten - protected
  • Improved residential environment as a result of noise barriers and urban design and landscaping
  • New skatepark as part of Victoria Park restoration

Features

The Victoria Park Tunnel project has three main components:

  • Length of project - 2.4km
  • Length of tunnel - 440m
  • Auckland's first urban tunnel will include three northbound lanes
  • The existing Victoria Park viaduct will be retained as four southbound lanes will double capacity for motorists travelling from the North Shore to the south
  • An extra lane will be added in each direction from Victoria Park to the Harbour Bridge to give a total of ten motorway lanes
  • The Victoria Park Tunnel will be constructed using a 'cut and cover' method - a trench excavated and lined and a concrete roof placed over the top. The roof will then be covered with topsoil and returned as public open space.

Urban design initiatives are included to improve the amenity and connectivity of the local area. Among them is a new public plaza in front of the Rob Roy Hotel, a footbridge over the motorway to reconnect land and sea in St Marys Bay and a walkway through St Marys Bay, protected from the motorway by a transparent noise wall.

The 1886-built Rob Roy Hotel is being protected and the heritage Campbell Free Kindergarten – New Zealand’s first purpose-built kindergarten – has been restored as part of the project.

Other facts

The Victoria Park Tunnel project is being delivered by the Victoria Park Alliance comprising the NZ Transport Agency, Fletcher Construction, Beca, Higgins Contractors, and Parsons Brinckerhoff.