Alice in Auckland

24 July 2013


The TBM, Alice, has berthed at the Ports of Auckland¹s Waitemata terminal on board the BBC Georgia, NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) announced yesterday. The TBM was dismantled for shipping and arrived in 100 separate Œbits¹ including 20 containers of small parts.

It will take 10 days to transport all the TBM's parts to the projects southern portal at Owairaka, where it will be reassembled, the agency stated. 13 of the 100 loads will be over-sized and they will be moved at night to minimise disruption to other traffic

"It's a long awaited and exciting arrival marking the next phase to complete the country's biggest roading project," said Tommy Parker, NZTA's state highways manager for Auckland and Northland.

Alice is the 10th biggest machine of its kind in the world and it has been custom-built to bore twin tunnels 2.4km long and up to 45m deep to connect Auckland's Northwestern (SH16) and Southwestern (SH20) with three lanes of traffic in each direction.

The Waterview Connection is the biggest of several projects underway or planned to complete the Western Ring Route ­ an alternative motorway for Auckland that will improve city and regional transport links as part of the Government's roads of national significance programme to help economic growth, the agency stated. It is being built by the Well-Connected Alliance comprising the NZ Transport Agency, McConnell Dowell, Fletcher, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Obayashi, Beca, and Tonkin&Taylor.