The Victoria Park Viaduct is a major motorway

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

carrying the

Auckland Northern Motorway The Auckland Northern Motorway (known locally as the Northern Motorway, and historically as the Auckland–Waiwera Motorway) in the Auckland Region of New Zealand links Central Auckland and Puhoi in the former Rodney District via the Hibisc ...

(State Highway 1) over the

Victoria Park Victoria Park may refer to: Places Australia * Victoria Park Nature Reserve, a protected area in Northern Rivers region, New South Wales * Victoria Park, Adelaide, a park and racecourse * Victoria Park, Brisbane, a public park and former golf ...

area in the

Auckland city centre The Auckland Central Business District (CBD), or Auckland city centre, is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland metropolitan area. It is the area in which Auckland was established in 1840, by William Hobson. It is New Zealand's le ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. Construction began in 1959, and the bridge was opened on 5 April 1962. Due to the high traffic volumes passing through on their way to and from

North Shore City North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

, and because the viaduct is only four lanes wide in total (while adjacent motorway stretches are at least six lanes), the bridge over the park is considered "one of the country's worst traffic bottlenecks", with around 200,000 vehicles a day. After improvements to the

Central Motorway Junction The Central Motorway Junction or CMJ (best known as Spaghetti Junction and rarely as Central Motorway Intersection), is the intersection of State Highways 1 and 16, just south of the central business district of Auckland. A multilevel structu ...

directly to the south in the early 2000s,

Transit New Zealand Transit New Zealand (Māori: Ararau Aotearoa), which existed from 1989 to 2008, was the New Zealand Crown entity responsible for operating and planning the New Zealand state highway network (10,894 km, about 12% of New Zealand's roads). It ...

, the highways authority, initially proposed a widening of the viaduct, which met with opposition from locals as well as from the

Auckland City Council Auckland City Council was the local government authority for Auckland City, New Zealand, from 1871 to 1 November 2010, when it and Auckland's six other city and district councils were amalgamated to form the Auckland Council. It was an elected b ...

and the

Auckland Regional Council The Auckland Regional Council (ARC) was the regional council (one of the former local government authorities) of the Auckland Region. Its predecessor the Auckland Regional Authority (ARA) was formed in 1963 and became the ARC in 1989. The AR ...

, because it would further burden the Victoria Park area with more traffic and a larger overpass structure. In 2004 the authority agreed that instead of a second viaduct, the 'Vic Park Tunnel' should be built, carrying northbound traffic only west of the existing structure, freeing it for southbound traffic.

References

Viaducts in New Zealand Concrete bridges in New Zealand Bridges in Auckland State Highway 1 (New Zealand) Auckland CBD {{NewZealand-road-stub

See also

References