…Slashes travel time by 50%
…Freight businesses save about 40 minutes on wharf-to-airport round trips.
With the opening of the new Waterview tunnel, travel times for drivers heading to Auckland Airport appear to have been cut by around 20 minutes. The tunnel opened on Sunday and on Tuesday the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) released figures showing some drastic travel time cuts.
The NZTA data showed there was a 20-minute time saving for those using the Waterview Tunnel to travel from the CBD to the airport at 8am on Monday compared with using Manukau Rd and Gillies Ave, on the previous Monday morning.
It’s a waiting game to see if key Auckland arterial routes like congested Dominion Rd will be relieved by Waterview Connection. The 42-minute CBD/airport average travel time dropped to 22 minutes. Meanwhile, travel in the opposite direction was 13 minutes faster during the same time period, dropping from an average 37 minutes to 24 minutes.
On Tuesday morning an NZTA spokeswoman said there were no traffic jam in the tunnel as it faced its second morning rush. “The tunnel is free flowing again this morning, there’s also a smaller tail at the link for the southern motorway on the northwestern, so this is where people join the southern from SH16.
Lynfield resident Grant Brodie, who works in Ponsonby, said “door-to-door” he’s saving 10 to 15 minutes each way using Waterview’s tunnels. “And the northwestern is flowing very well into the city.”
The spokeswoman said feedback from the tunnel’s first working day had been “very positive”, with people reporting substantially shorter journeys. That’s despite travelling 15km on the new route compared to 13km using his old cross-town route.
NZTA Auckland highway manager Brett Gliddon said travel time figures validate commuters’ feedback; that their journeys to and from the airport are more efficient when they use the Waterview, and the tunnel is also providing an additional route which is easing congestion on local roads”.
Travel times on Manukau Rd and Gillies Ave, a previous main route to the airport with numerous stop-start lights and pinch-points had dropped by a four-minute average, NZTA said.
Freight businesses had also been reporting time savings of about 40 minutes on wharf-to-airport round trips.
