Auckland Light Rail is a step closer towards enlisting its team for the detailed planning and design of a new light rail line from the City Centre to Māngere. Invites have gone out to engineers, urban planners, designers and industry teams both across the country and abroad.
“This is a mega project that has never been seen before in New Zealand. So we have put the call out to a range of local and international firms to bring us their real skills and experience for how light rail will work best here,” says Auckland Light Rail Group Project Director Tommy Parker.
The tender process is being coordinated with the Additional Waitematā Harbour Connections project, to give industry professionals the ability to better plan their resources for the pipeline of infrastructure work that is coming across the country. The two projects will be bringing on separate teams.
The new specialist team is expected to be on board in October and will be tasked with developing a Corridor Business Case and designing the route to progress the project by mid-2024. Engagement with communities will help to shape decisions such as creating stations and stops, which can transform local areas into urban hubs.
The $14.6B project will see light rail in a tunnel from Wynyard Quarter to Mt Roskill, which comes to the surface and runs alongside the SH20 motorway to the airport. It will form the spine of a new rapid transit network for the whole city, that can be expanded in time to connect with other lines to the North Shore and North West.
Visit the tender website at gets.govt.nz or the light rail project website.
