Excavators have started clearing roadside vegetation in preparation for work on the first, $19.5 million stage of the two-stage redevelopment of the Caversham motorway.
Part of Sidey Park, a designated road reserve, has been cleared and will soon be the fenced-off home to Downer EDI Works' site office and construction machinery, New Zealand Transport Agency project manager Simon Underwood said yesterday.
At the Glen end of the project - to convert the highway between Barnes Dr and Andersons Bay Rd to four lanes - vegetation was being cleared from around the Bridge St overbridge ready for work on the piles needed to support another two lanes for the highway.
Mr Underwood said construction at the bridge would start in earnest next month before the Goodall St footbridge was removed to be raised and extended in March.
Work on retaining walls, including work on a 330m-long wall along the railway line, would also be part of an obvious increase in activity along that stretch of the road.
Sidey Park would be made back into a park, and de-vegetated areas would be replanted, by the end of the 20-month project, Mr Underwood said.
Photo by Craig Baxter.
