A Fletcher, Beca Higgins Alliance was contracted to build a tunnel under Victoria Park to take all the SH1 North bound traffic from the Central Motorway Junction to the Harbour Bridge. We were commissioned by the VicPark Alliance to prepare, monitor and report on the construction programme to keep the project on track.
The project also included trenched approaches from Wellington Street and widened motorway from Victoria Park to the Harbour Bridge.
During the project the iconic Birdcage Hotel was moved 100m up Franklin Road and moved back once the tunnel was built. It was moved back to it's old position which was previously the original foreshore.
One of the precursors to the project entailed the rerouting of the Freemans Bay stormwater line and the Orakei sewer main in the Victoria Street area.
The tunnel opened as planned immediately following the 2011 Rugby World Cup. This project was the last cog in the Central Motorway junction network. It was unbelievable how well traffic flowed through the area once the project was fully opened in the autumn of 2012.
This released the last bottleneck in all of the central motorway junction projects.
The tunnel construction included removing 160,000 cubic metres of soil in the 700 metres long tunnel trench.
