Build a bridge

We three braved the elements on Saturday to explore the first part of the Dowse to Petone interchange to actually get finished. I'd been wanting to take some pictures of the project for a while for various reasons (one being seeing it every day in various states while commuting to the hospital to visit Charlotte back in September), so sod the rain, we were in.

Letting people explore a major works project before it opens to traffic is a neat idea. The gold coin donation went to Te Omanga, and it lets people connect with what could otherwise be an impenetrable piece of architecture.

Plus wandering around on foot in a place where it will shortly be very dangerous to do so has a certain cheap thrill frisson to it:
I like watching things come together and seeing them in a half finished state, especially when you can follow progress over a period of months.

Some finishing touches were still being applied around us

And it will be cool to tell someone years from now that they were here when it was brand new.

Having ambled over it on foot, I have since driven over it since it opened yesterday. It has straight bit on the bridge part that is just straight enough to make your indicator self cancel when you need it to not do that, and the slip road back down to the motorway is a little bit short and angled for the required merge. That said the Hutt road entry and exit is really good, with good sightlines for oncoming traffic and clear signposting.

Also it was opened yesterday and has already been tagged. Admittedly it was supporting one of the schools participating in the McEvedy Shield athletics comp presumably held today (since I saw other exhortations in a simliar theme along the rest of the motorway into town), rather than graph art, but that has to be some kind of record time wise.