Motorway Problem At Wellington

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29989, 26 November 1962, Page 14

Motorway Problem At Wellington

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, November 25. Canterbury citizens may have been wrangling over the worth and course of a motorway to the north from Christchurch for more than five years, but Wellington residents have to face an even more galling traffic planning situation.

It arises from the six-lane motorway which is being built along the edge of their harbour from the end of Ao tea quay, near the railway yards, to Ngauranga. There, traffic from the north joins traffic from Hutt Valley.

Harbour reclamation costing more than £500.000 along the narrow. earthquake raised shelf around the harbour’s edge began three years ago. It is now almost finished. But only last week did the National Roads Board authorise work on the overbridges which will get traffic on and off the new strip of motorway.

So, although it was predicted in 1959 that the present road access to Wellington would reach saturation point in three to four years form then, it will still be five years before the project will be usable.

The job is a big one and an awkward one. The huge overbridge to lead traffic off the motorway and over the Aramoana ferry berth which plugs the end of the reclamation to Aotea quay, and another section across the railway yards and engine sheds to Tinakori road behind Parliament Buildings, has been described as second only in extent to the Auckland Harbour Bridge. One flyover will be almost a mile long, and it presents a challenge to the designers. It will be largely on reclaimed land and virtually on top of Wellington’s main geological fault. Test bores have already begun and the District Commissioner of Works (Mr H. A. Fullarton) has forecast that the twin outlets to the city will take three years to build. With the overbridge two

miles away at the Ngauranga end of the reclamation, to get traffic over the railway lines and on to the Hutt road and into the Ngauranga gorge, the scheme is expected to cost about £5 million.

Then, to make Wellington’s enlarged entrance fully effective the motorway must be extended north to Petone and south past the centre of the city. That will cost another £lO million.

As an aside to the planning of these overbridges, and to keep what happens underneath them on the level. Parliament is now considering an adjustment to the Public Works Act. This adds to the provision for taking land or subsoil for public work the phrase: ‘‘air space above the surface.”