Auckland Northern Motorway

Story

The Auckland Northern Motorway in the Auckland Region of New Zealand links central Auckland City and Puhoi in the former Rodney District via the Hibiscus Coast and North Shore. It is part of State Highway 1.It is in length, with 15 junctions. Until the end of the 1980s, it was largely associated with the Auckland Harbour Bridge as a connection between central Auckland and the North Shore, but since 1994 it has been extended to Puhoi to become the primary route between the Auckland urban area, the Hibiscus Coast satellite towns, the northern Rodney district, and Northland. Between the 1959 opening of the motorway and 1984, tolls were collected on the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and since 2009 tolls have been collected on the Northern Gateway Toll Road, the northernmost section of the motorway, bypassing the Hibiscus Coast.The Northern Motorway sees heavy traffic: the section between Esmonde Road and Cook Street has an annual average daily traffic count of over 100,000 vehicles per day, with around 155,000 vehicles per day crossing the Harbour Bridge.RouteThe Northern Motorway starts near Puhoi, in the former Rodney District. It leaves the two-lane coastal road between Puhoi and Waiwera on the northern side of Johnstone's Hill, then tunnels under the hill in 340-metre long twin tunnels.