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Frustrated motorists in Auckland could finally get some relief from Monday.
A multi-million dollar makeover of Auckland's notorious "spaghetti junction" is expected to smooth the way for drivers travelling from one side of the city to the other.
New signs, ramps and bridges represent four years' work at a cost of $300 million. That is roughly $3 for every man, woman and child living in greater Auckland.
Throughout the construction traffic has been kept flowing through the complex central city junction.
Transit regional manager Peter Spies says they had to keep some 200,000 vehicles a day flowing through the junction. "A very tight corridor."
From Monday vehicles will not have to trundle through city streets to connect between motorways.
People driving either way between the northern motorway and the port - the entry to Auckland's eastern suburbs - will be able to do so without leaving the motorway.
The same goes for the north-western motorway. It is already connected with the port, but now drivers can go either way between the northern and north-western motorways without having to divert off to city streets to make the connection.
Spaghetti junction has been funnelling traffic through Auckland since the early 1970s.
Alec Aitken, a former district commissioner of works, says it was never designed to take the huge volumes of traffic it does now because a public transport system was supposed to happen in parallel.
"We did a rapid transit scheme in 1973 which would have been the answer to providing for a rail system which would have been quite adaptable to modern circumstances. But then for some reason they got cold feet," Aitken says.
The work is not yet over for the heart of Auckland's motorway
system.
Engineers still face the challenge of replacing the Newmarket
viaduct and building a tunnel to go under Victoria Park.
