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Stage: Proposals
Motorway: Northern & Southern Motorway (SH1)
Page Contents:
Overview, Upper Harbour to Greville Widening (Northern), Manukau to Papakura Widening (Southern), Comment

Overview

With the completion of the Western Ring Route in mind it has been identified that two sections of the Northern & Southern motorway must be upgraded to cope with the extra traffic demand at the Western Ring terminus points. On the Northern Motorway this is at Upper Harbour in Albany and Manukau in South Auckland. Like the North Western Widening & Improvements project this will address capacity issues on the existing network.

The Northern part is a small section between the Upper Harbour Highway/Constellation Drive and Greville Road in the Northbound direction only.

The Southern part is longer, between Manukau and Papakura interchange incorporating an improvement of the Takanini interchange.

Both of these projects are future proposed projects.

Upper Harbour to Greville Widening (Northern Motorway)

Status: Proposed.

This is a small section between the Upper Harbour/Constellation Interchange and the Greville Road interchange on the Northern Motorway in Albany. The proposed improvement would be the addition of a third lane between the two interchanges in the northbound direction.

This could either be from the existing third lane drop just after the northbound Upper Harbour off-ramp to the third lane gain after the Greville off-ramp with an auxiliary lane between the Upper Harbour on-ramp and the Greville off-ramp, or just an auxiliary lane between the Upper Harbour on-ramp and Greville off-ramp.

This will alleviate congestion in the afternoon peak by providing more capacity for incoming traffic from the Upper Harbour Highway/Constellation Drive and more lanes dedicated to either exiting at Greville Road or heading North.

This project should also include the southbound section by at least providing an auxiliary lane between Greville and Constellation off-ramps - the project does not.

The above image is a suggested layout with a separated two way access road that would provide access to Greville Road from Upper Harbour and cut down on potential lane weaving from merging traffic when entering the motorway. This would result in the closure of the current Greville Road off-ramp and traffic wishing to access Greville Road would take an off-ramp in the vicinity of the Upper Harbour Highway interchange. That would allow exiting traffic to pass over the oncoming traffic from Upper Harbour Highway. This consideration is important due to the increased traffic volume expected to enter the motorway here and to mitigate issues related to weaving. (This is an opinion section written by this website's creator Benjamin Paul (about)).

Manukau to Papakura Widening (Southern Motorway)

Status: Proposed.

This is a large widening section between the Manukau Extension (South Western Motorway) ramps in Manukau to the Papakura Interchange in the south. The proposed improvement would be the addition of a lane between Manukau and Papakura in both directions.

If one lane is added in both directions this equals four lanes between Manukau and Hill Road, then three lanes to Papakura. The project also incorporates an upgrade of the Takanini interchange. The layout of the interchange may stay similar to what it is - but for additional lanes to pass through this section the interchange bridge plus the Main Trunk Line bridge would need to be replaced - hence the upgrade to the interchange.

The project above should have been completed at the same time as the Manukau Extension project - shortly after this project opened severe congestion was caused by the merging traffic. By completing the project traffic congestion through this section should be alleviated in the PM peak by providing more space for traffic to enter the motorway. Also the bottleneck caused by the Takanini interchange should be alleviated too.

Above: At Manukau from Orams Road. The left and right lanes that end are to and from the Manukau Extension.
Above: The Takanini Straight looking toward the Takanini Interchange.

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Comments

From: Rob 30/01/2012:

The 'Proposed' addition of a 3rd lane northbound between The Constellation Drive & Greville Road interchanges is a must and should be given priority. It is an obvious Northern Motorway bottleneck that should not have been allowed given that the Constellation Drive interchange was always going to be a major interchange linking the Northern & North Western motorways. All the excellent work done in streamlining the Northern motorway plus the completion of the bus lanes is now going unnoticed with the above bottleneck being so glaringly obvious & where all the $$$ spent with northbound ramp lights at Constellation seem so wasteful given that 3 northbound motorway lanes plus 2 northbound ramp lanes plus a separate bus lane have to squeeze into a 2 lane gap by the treatment ponds, which is ridiculous. Also the placement of a Police patrol ramp at this point causes unnecessary distraction right at the main point of congestion.

From: Wayne 30/08/2011:

There is not a time during daylight hours that I have seen this section run at its maximum possible motorway speed; it is the most appalling section of SH1 within Auckland not surprising when 4 lanes go into two. Surely the traffic speed metres must be showing the need for this?  Northbound is the very serious one so 100% of the crew on that would be much better than a 50/50 split of resources to work on both sides at the same time.  Better to finish the north 50% faster then put 100% of the crew onto south side, faster and less disruptive.  PLEASE lock this in not just a possible; it has been needed for 5 years at least!

From Rouse 23/07/2011:

Make the widening on the section between Constellation Drive and Greville Rd as generous as possible as this is already a serious congestion point which will only worsen as each section of the Western Ring Route is completed. Do the auxiliary lane and the third lane. To do any less would be ludicrous and cause traffic to bank up all over the place including back onto the western arm of Constellation Drive.




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