Central Motorway Junction
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The Central Motorway Junction or CMJ (best known as Spaghetti Junction and rarely as Central Motorway Intersection or CMI), is the intersection of State Highways 1 and 16, just south of the central business district of Auckland. A multilevel structure (three traffic levels crossing in several locations), it has been described as a "fiendishly complicated, multi-layered puzzle of concrete, steel and asphalt". Carrying around 200,000 vehicles a day, it is one of the busiest stretches of road in New Zealand. The junction forms the intersection between three major motorways: the Northern and Southern Motorways of State Highway 1, and the Northwestern Motorway and Grafton Gully /
Port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...
on State Highway 16, and has several off-ramps for access to the city centre. It is mainly in gullies and cuttings around the CBD, and its construction 1960–1970s removed whole neighbourhoods. It has somewhat of a hybrid function, falling between a typical ‘X’ interchange and
ring road A ring road (also known as circular road, beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist in reducin ...
around the city centre. All linkages are direct and there is no separate ring road. The interchange and associated structures encircle the
Auckland CBD The Auckland Central Business District (CBD), or Auckland city centre, is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland, Auckland metropolitan area. It is the area in which Auckland was established in 1840, by William Hobson on land gifted ...
on three sides, the
Auckland waterfront The Auckland waterfront (rarely the Auckland harbourfront) is a city-side stretch of the southern Waitematā Harbour coastline in Auckland, New Zealand. Previously mostly dominated by Ports of Auckland uses, from the 2000s on it is becoming i ...
to the north forming the fourth 'border' of central Auckland.


History

Designed in the 1960s and with most of its links built in the 1970s, the CMJ was a major project in a scheme that led to the forcible acquisition and demolition of 15,000 dwellings in the inner suburbs, causing 50,000 people to move away from the area, with major negative effects on the nearby
Auckland CBD The Auckland Central Business District (CBD), or Auckland city centre, is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland, Auckland metropolitan area. It is the area in which Auckland was established in 1840, by William Hobson on land gifted ...
, and especially the
Karangahape Road Karangahape Road (commonly known as K' Road) is one of the main streets in the Auckland CBD, central business district (CBD) of Auckland, New Zealand. The massive expansion of motorways through the nearby inner city area – and subsequent flig ...
shopping area, which fell into decline for decades. Two Catholic schools, St Benedict's College (secondary) and St Benedict's School (primary), were forced to close down. The CMJ was substantially extended (or in a sense, finally completed) in the 2000s, with the final links opened to traffic in December 2006. During the duration of this NZ$208m project, the existing motorways had to be closed several hundred times during overnight, with traffic rerouted over local roads.


Connections

The CMJ provides motorway-to-motorway links between the following four routes radiating from the city centre: * Northern Motorway (SH1) to/from the North Shore via
Auckland Harbour Bridge The Auckland Harbour Bridge is an eight-lane motorway bridge over Waitematā Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand. It joins Saint Marys Bay, New Zealand, St Marys Bay on the Auckland city side with Northcote, Auckland, Northcote on the North Shore, ...
* Southern Motorway (SH1) to/from the south * Northwestern Motorway westbound (SH16) to/from
the west West is a cardinal direction or compass point. West or The West may also refer to: Geography and locations Global context * The Western world * Western culture and Western civilization in general * The Western Bloc, countries allied with NAT ...
* Northwestern Motorway eastbound (SH16) to/from Ports of Auckland and eastern suburbs The last of these links (Northwest Motorway eastbound to Northern Motorway northbound) officially opened on 19 December 2006, marking the completion of the junction. Plans have now shifted further north, with the tunnel at the Victoria Park Viaduct being the last of a set of three major motorway projects in the area. The CMJ includes city exits from SH1 and SH16 to downtown, Grafton Gully (the first of the three large motorway projects, containing the section of the Northwestern Motorway between the Upper Queen Street bridge and The Strand in Parnell, and the Southern Motorway between Symonds Street exit and The Strand), with five other pairs of ramps giving access to the central area. A noteworthy structural component of the CMJ is the area underneath Karangahape Rd, where 19 lanes of traffic forming nine distinct links pass through a cutting through the Karangahape ridge on a multi-level structure.


Alternative routes

The other two major motorways in Auckland, the Southwestern Motorway and the Upper Harbour Motorway, form a continuous link in the west of the city, providing an alternative to SH1 between
Manukau Manukau (), or Manukau Central, is a suburb of South Auckland, New Zealand, centred on the Manukau City Centre business district. It is located 23 kilometres south of the Auckland Central Business District, west of the Southern Motorway, ...
and Albany. The goal is to provide traffic passing through Auckland, or starting or ending in the western suburbs, with an alternative high-speed route that bypasses the often congested motorways in central Auckland including the CMJ.


Cycle path

The
NZ Transport Agency NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA), superseded by is a New Zealand Crown entity tasked with promoting safe and functional transport by land, including the responsibility for driver and vehicle licensing, and administering the New Zealand st ...
was in November 2009 investigating a plan to extend the off-road Northwestern Cycleway through the intersection, to join it to Symonds Street and achieve better cycle linkages from the west into the
Auckland CBD The Auckland Central Business District (CBD), or Auckland city centre, is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland, Auckland metropolitan area. It is the area in which Auckland was established in 1840, by William Hobson on land gifted ...
. In mid 2010, it became public that a preliminary alignment had been chosen, with the cycle path using the Upper Queen Street bridge to cross the motorway. A disused offramp was repurposed in 2016 as a dedicated walking and cycling shared path, extending the Northwestern cycleway through to Nelson street. A purpose-built bridge connects Canada Street to the brightly painted and illuminated offramp now known as Lightpath/Te Ara I Whiti.


Origin of nickname

The interchange's nickname comes from that of Gravelly Hill Junction in
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
, UK, which opened in 1972 and was given the nickname "Spaghetti Junction". Many complex interchanges around the world have also been given the same nickname.


See also

* Grafton Gully * Transport in Auckland * Victoria Park Viaduct


References


External links


Central Motorway Junction
(
Transit New Zealand Transit New Zealand (Māori: Ararau Aotearoa), which existed from 1989 to 2008, was the New Zealand Crown entity responsible for operating and planning the New Zealand state highway network (10,894 km, about 12% of New Zealand's roads). It ...
's project website) {{New Zealand motorway list 2006 establishments in New Zealand Motorways in New Zealand Transport in Auckland Buildings and structures in Auckland Road interchanges in New Zealand State Highway 1 (New Zealand) Road junctions in New Zealand Auckland CBD