Victoria Park Tunnel

Eliminating the grid lock on SH1

By addressing the bottleneck in Auckland’s motorway system between Newmarket and the Auckland Harbour Bridge, the Victoria Park Tunnel created safer and faster trips for 150,000 vehicles a day.

As part of an alliance alongside the NZ Transport Agency, Beca, Higgins and Parson’s Brinkerhoff, we constructed the 440m cut and cover tunnel which carries three lanes of northbound traffic metres below Victoria Park and widened the existing motorway through St Mary’s Bay. We modified the existing four-lane viaduct to carry southbound traffic.

Works were undertaken in a complex live traffic environment impacting on services, businesses and residential properties. Great care was taken to minimise such impacts. Preservation of key heritage sites was also an important aspect of the project – particularly the 1886-era Rob Roy hotel which had to be moved to make space for the widened viaduct.

Preservation of key heritage sites was also an important aspect of the project – particularly the 1886-era Rob Roy hotel which had to be moved to make space for the widened viaduct.

Urban design features opened up the area for the community, including a much-improved replacement skatepark, a new public plaza in front of the Rob Roy Hotel, a footbridge over the motorway to reconnect land and sea in St Marys Bay and a walkway through St Marys Bay, protected from the motorway by a transparent noise wall.

We delivered the project as part of an alliance alongside Beca, Higgins, Parsons Brinkerhoff, and the New Zealand Transport Agency.