'Gateway to Auckland'

John Landrigan | 12th November 2009

You're looking at the first public picture of the new gateway to Auckland. What do you think?

This 100m footbridge, part of the massive Victoria Park tunnel project, will cost between $3 million and $5 million. It has been touted as the "Gateway to Auckland'' by the Government-run NZ Transport Agency.

When completed next year it will cross from the steep Jacob's Ladder stairway in St Marys Bay across 10 busy motorway lanes to Westhaven Marina.

Warren and Mahoney Architects are working on the design. The seemingly translucent bridge - 100m long, 3.5m wide and 3.5m tall - differs greatly from artists' impressions previously displayed on the agency's website.

Adina Halpern's home is at the top of Jacob's Ladder. She's pleased the project is going ahead but would like to have known more about it.

"I applaud the big picture but it is difficult to imagine what they are going to do with the
large span.''

St Marys Bay Residents Association president and architect John Hill saw the designs only when approached by The Aucklander.

"I'm still unsure of the detail. I'm surprised it has not been put to the public. It would have been useful if it was.''

He does not believe the bridge lives up to its hype as Auckland's gateway as it looks to be an economically-driven design.

Transport Agency spokesman Ewart Barnsley says the full costings have not been developed yet and the footbridge has only "a rough benchmark of $3 million to $5 million''.

"The bridge is conceived as a dramatic and simple four-sided form aligned diagonally across the motorway. It is clad in a dynamic and complex skin, part transparent and part metallic.''

Mr Hill points out that when the eight councils are merged, the gateway to Auckland would surely be found much further away - in Rodney.