Light at end of Victoria Park Tunnel | Auckland Opinion | Local Voices from Auckland, New Zealand

Is it it wrong to be excited about the opening of a tunnel? To wonder who will be the first to drive through it? To wonder how fast it's going to make my trip home?

Probably, but I can't help myself.I drive past the Victoria Tunnel construction site every day, and if I'm the passenger I always have a gander to see what the workers are doing. A year ago, huge holes bored in the ground fascinated me, then I marvelled at the picking up and shifting of the old Rob Roy Hotel.

I found myself inexplicably intrigued by what they retrieved when digging historic spots, and now I'm excited by the emergence of the tunnel exit at Fanshawe St.

I'm not the kind of person who could have envisaged what it would all look like in the end. I looked at the New Zealand Transport Agency website and still couldn't really figure it out. I need to actually see it.

That will be next Monday, when two of the tunnel's three northbound lanes open at 5am, after a weekend of final preparations. Those preparations will see a number of road closures, not just near Vic Park but in other parts of the motorway system as well, possibly leading to a bit of madness out there.

But we're assured it will all be worth it. At $340 million you'd hope so. (By the way, nzta.govt.nz has maps to show you how to avoid problem areas over the weekend).

The 450m tunnel runs 12-14m below Victoria Park, and runs from St Marys Bay to Wellington St. It has all sorts of whiz-bang technology inside including 18 sprinkler zones that could deliver Auckland's annual rainfall in 24 hours. Well, that's saying something. The intention is not for that to happen - but if there's a fire in the tunnel, let's just say there's plenty of water to deal with it.

Big jet fans, CCTV, a public address system for emergencies, flashing text boards, it's got the lot. No word, though, on vending machines for when traffic backs up.

But it shouldn't, of course. The plan is that the tunnel will remove the last major traffic bottleneck on Auckland's central motorway network - between the Harbour Bridge and Newmarket - after the third lane opens in March. Around 150,000 vehicles use that stretch of road every day.

Meanwhile, heading south, Victoria Park flyover will be reconfigured by January 9 to be four southbound-only lanes. They'll be created from the current northbound lanes - that will feel weird to drive over for a while!

The current southbound lanes will become off-ramps to the CBD, the Northwestern motorway and the Port. That's when the full benefits of the new road system will really be felt.

If I'm sounding like an ad for the NZTA here, I'm not. I'm just trying to work out in my head how it will all come together. There's a very good reason why I was never going to be an engineer.

Editor@theaucklander.co.nz