Central Motorway Junction
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The Central Motorway Junction, best known as Spaghetti Junction, is the intersection of New Zealand State Highways 1 and 16 south of the city centre of Auckland, New Zealand.
Over 50,000 people had to move from the area when the central motorway network was constructed in the 1960s and 1970s, with major effects on the nearby Karangahape Road shopping area. The junction is currently being expanded, with completion expected in late 2006. Latest reports indicate an opening date of December 15. The picture to the right is a computer generated image showing the final form of these upgrade works.
The central motorway junction forms the intersection between the two major motorways of Auckland (State Highway 1 and State Highway 16), and provides access from these routes to the city centre. It is principally located in a series of gullies to the south and east of the CBD and in cuttings to the west.
It has somewhat of a hybrid function, falling somewhere between a typical ‘X’ interchange and ring road around the city centre. However all linkages are direct and there is no separate ring road as such. The interchange and associated structures encircles the Auckland CBD on three sides, the waterfront to the north forming the fourth side of the commonly used ‘border’ of central Auckland.
Once upgrades are complete the CMJ will feature motorway-to-motorway links between the following four routes radiating from the city centre:
- SH1 Northbound to the North Shore via the Harbour Bridge (“Northern Motorway”)
- SH1 Southbound to southern Auckland via the Newmarket Viaduct (“Southern Motorway”).
- SH16 Westbound via the “North-Western Motorway”
- SH16 Eastbound via Grafton Gully ( a short link giving access to the Port of Auckland and eastern suburbs)
In addition, the CMJ also includes the primary dedicated city exits from SH1 and SH16 to downtown, the Grafton Gully interchange between SH16 and the eastern side of the city, and some five other pairs of ramps giving access to the central area.
An interesting structure of note is the cutting underneath Karangahape Rd, where some 19 lanes of traffic forming 9 distinct links pass through a very constrained cutting under the Karangahape ridge on a two level structure (The area visible in the centre-left of the image above).
The other two motorways under construction in Auckland, the ‘South-Western’ and ‘Upper Harbour’ motorways will form a continuous link in the west of the city between SH1 in the south at Manukau with SH1 in the north at Albany. The main goal of this route is to provide an alternative north-south route in the west that bypasses the central area and avoids the often congested central motorway junction.
