Park Estate Road Bridge – Construction Complete

When Auckland’s Southern Motorway was extended southwards from Takaanini to Drury in the mid-1960s, Park Estate Road was going to be cut in two, creating the need to build the original Park Estate Road overbridge (image below). At that time, housing developments were continuing to grow on the eastern side of the motorway and around Great South Road, while the western side of the new motorway remained mostly farmland.

Jump forward 50+ years and things have changed a lot! A new primary school Mangapikopiko School recently opened on the Western side. The Hugh Green Group is creating a new community at Park Green and this residential development is progressing at pace, with the construction of a new coastal Café already started and construction of a new neighbourhood centre about to begin shortly. Over 100 new homes are under construction and once completed it is expected the that Park Green will be home to 1200+ dwellings.

Construction of the new Park Estate Road bridge began in April 2021 with a longer, wider and slightly higher bridge being built to cater for both the current and future needs of motorway users passing under it and also the needs of local motorists, pedestrians and cyclists travelling over it. The bridge needed to be built in two halves to maintain continuous access to the western end of the ‘no-exit’ road and the old bridge was demolished in May 2022.

When designing the new bridge, the team at NZTA engaged with utility services companies to identify where utility upgrades might need to be built into the design, and then collaborated to make that happen. An example of this is the addition of a new watermain pipe on the southern side of the Park Estate Road bridge that will, in future, supply drinking water to the now fast-growing communities on the western side of the motorway. Another example of this ‘future-proofing’ is the addition of new service ducts in the new bridge not only for existing utilities but also to meet future growth needs.

The new bridge was completed on target in June. It was officially opened and blessed by Mana Whenua with a pre-dawn Karakia. The new bridge has a shared footpath and bike path on its southern side and a new footpath on the northern side. In the future, NZTA plan to connect this shared path on Park Estate Road to the ‘Southern Path’ – which will be extended from Papakura down to Drury and provide a continuous pathway alongside the motorway from Takaanini to Drury. The shared path will also connect to Park Green’s extensive network of pedestrian and cycle ways that run along the harbour edge offering outstanding coastal paths that connect to nature and views of the Hunua Ranges, Bombay Hills, and Pukekohe hill.

Credits: Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency and Hugh Green Group