Victoria Park Viaduct Upgrade

As part of ongoing maintenance of the state highway network, the Victoria Park Viaduct will be upgraded with energy-efficient LED lights and new curved steel barriers.

Switching to energy-efficient, cost-saving LEDs

The current High Pressure Sodium lights are costly to maintain and the bulbs often require replacing, leading to more frequent closures of the viaduct that inconvenience both motorists and nearby residents.

Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) offer a number of benefits over HPS lights:

• Environment: Reduced light pollution. LEDs have a more natural white light with lower ambience or surrounding "spill" compared with traditional yellow lights.
• Costs: LEDs last longer; power usage is considerably lower; maintenance and cleaning costs are reduced.
• Efficiency: Light from LEDs spreads more evenly across a highway or pavement so less electricity is needed to power them.
• Safety: A LED luminaire is comprised of banks of LEDs, so should a single LED fail, the rest will still continue to light the road. When a traditional street light fails, the area is left dark. This results in more closures for maintenance to replace the lights.
• Safety: International experience has shown improved driver visibility and reaction times under LED luminaires compared to traditional lights.

The LED lights to be installed on the viaduct are already in use in New Zealand. View a photo(external link) of LED lighting along a section of the Hamilton Ring Road.

Replacing the lights

Work crews will use a hiab (truck with a crane mounted on it) parked on the viaduct to access each light pole using a bucket. After the old light pole is removed the concrete base (‘footing’) will be checked and a new light pole and LED luminaire installed. All lights will be replaced in the same evening to ensure continuous lighting for drivers.

Replacing the barriers

Under an overnight closure of the viaduct, the existing pipe rail barrier will be cut off and replaced with curved steel guardrails, identical to those elsewhere on the Auckland motorway network. Temporary barrier links installed at the end of each work session ensure there are no gaps in the guardrail for the travelling public.

Working efficiently

To reduce the disruption to nearby neighbours, two crews will be working under the same overnight closures to complete the work as soon as possible.

The main contractor is Conspec Construction Limited, who will be managing the barrier replacement programme. Another, smaller team from the AMA will join Conspec on-site to replace the lights.

Work will take start at the northern end near the Harbour Bridge and finish at the southern end near Cook Street, so the noise is not expected to be concentrated in one area for an extended length of time.

Quick facts

• 50 lights and 1.5km of barriers to be replaced
• Starts on Monday 5 January 2015
• Finished by Wednesday 18 March 2015
• Working hours 10pm to 5am, Sunday to Thursday
• No work on Friday or Saturday nights
• Upgrade will cost approximately $2.5 million
• Detours in place on SH1 while work takes place
• Noise management will manage the effects on nearby residents