Accelerating Victoria Park Will Have Benefits

Accelerating Victoria Park Project Will Have Significant Productivity Benefits

"An early start to construction of the $430m Victoria Park project in Auckland will provide a welcome boost to the construction industry and will make a valuable contribution to lifting productivity in New Zealands largest city. The increased capacity that the tunnel will provide is key to releasing earlier investment in the central motorway junction", says New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Chief Executive Stephen Selwood.

Originally proposed as a duplicate viaduct and then revised into a tunnel the project has been over a decade in gestation.

Its been 10 years of lost time for thousands of commuters and goods and service vehicles. Once completed the long queues of traffic heading north on the southern motorway from early in the afternoon will be substantially reduced. Not only will this improve freight deliveries across the region, the many thousands of service vehicles from electricians to plumbers, builders, couriers and traders of all descriptions will be able to get north and south more efficiently. While there is no doubt that we need to invest in our passenger transport network, we can't afford to ignore that 90% of firms employ fewer than 20 staff and are dependent on the mobility that the core motorway network provides. The Victoria Park project is a long awaited catch-up project that will substantially ease congestion on the southern motorway as well as south-bound traffic from the harbour bridge.

ENDS

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