Wellington Urban Motorway
The Wellington Urban Motorway, part of SH 1, is the major road into and out of Wellington, New Zealand. It is 7 km long, ranges from three to seven lanes wide, and extends from the base of the Ngauranga Gorge into the Wellington CBD. From the Ngauranga Interchange (State Highways 1 & 2), the motorway travels south across an extra piece of reclaimed land alongside the Wairarapa and North Island Main Trunk railway lines. After passing through the suburb of Kaiwharawhara, the motorway travels across the 1335m long Thorndon overbridges, the longest bridges in the North Island, before entering the suburb of Thorndon. Shortly after it enters the Terrace Tunnel before terminating at Vivian Street in Wellington City. History Following the Second World War the National Roads Board, an arm of the Ministry of Works, began the search for better road access to Wellington. In the late 1950s they proposed a motorway between Ngauranga and Wellington's airport. The first proposal was released in 1961. Their proposal was rejected by the public for its damage to the Basin Reserve and U.S. consultants, De Leuw Cather, were called in. The alignment and scale of the motorway between Ngauranga and the Bowen Street