Auckland Harbour Bridge

The Auckland Harbour Bridge was completed in May 1959 at a cost of $246 million (in todays NZ dollars) and operated as a toll road up until 1984. In 1969 two additional lanes were added each side supported on the existing piers.
After a series of fatal accidents especially at the bend on the southern side and to improve traffic flow a movable median barrier was installed in 1990 allowing a 3/5 lane configuration at peak times (five lanes south bound in the morning and five northbound in the evening) .

In 1959 11,000 vehicles crossed the bridge each day while in 2021 between 180,000 and 200,000 vehicles cross.

Prior to the bridge opening the only real access to the North Shore was by passenger and car ferry as witnessed by the very old dwellings in Devonport and Birkenhead with most of the rest of the shore being seaside villages and farmland.
There have been plans for some years to build a "sky path" beneath the bridge to carry both pedestrians and cyclists who weren't (unlike the Sydney Harbour bridge) considered at any point in the prior construction. However due to miscalculations by NZTA (who manage the bridge) the millions spent, and approvals given for the construction of Skypath have been were recently dumped when it was found the bridge can not support any more weight .
There have been suggestions of a couple of alternatives, a parallel new cycling and walking bridge costed at $2billion or designating one of the existing traffic lanes for cyclists - a personal view is that these are both "when hell freezes over" options and in any case $2billion would purchase a pretty decent ferry shuttle service . The only real solution is to build (as in the case of Sydney) a tunnel to improve capacity, this has been planned for for decades with millions spend on planning and protecting the designation of the land needed it just need a government with sufficient guts to get on with it , especially as the bridge as a metal structure is subject to fatigue and thus has a finite life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aucklan...

Stills : Canon 5Dm4 and Canon G7xii
Hyperlapse video : Osmo Action


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