The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) advises Aucklanders to drive with extra caution when leaving the city on the Southern Motorway (State Highway 1) next week as drivers become accustomed to an improved motorway layout.
From Monday (2 May), a fourth southbound lane will extend from the city to Greenlane.
The extra capacity will remove the traditional peak-hour bottleneck at the Newmarket Viaduct, where four lanes have historically reduced to three. The new layout will create increased capacity, reduce peak-hour journey times to Greenlane by up to five minutes, create a more graduated and safer merge area for southbound traffic, and will also help manage the flow of southbound traffic from the Northwestern Motorway (SH16) on to SH1.
Drivers exiting at Greenlane should expect a slightly longer queue due to the faster arrival rate of vehicles at the off-ramp. The NZTA and its transport partner, Auckland Transport, will be monitoring traffic patterns at this key interchange to ensure safety and optimise efficiency, especially during opening peak demand periods
The opening of the fourth lane marks the completion of Stage 1 of the NZTA's $215M Newmarket Connection: Viaduct Replacement Project. Stage 2, the deconstruction of the original southbound viaduct between the two operational motorway carriageways, is already well underway and all drivers are reminded that a reduced 70kph speed limit remains in place in both directions across the viaduct.
