Веллингтондағы Маунт-Виктория тоннелінің тарихы мен ерекшеліктері

Road tunnel in Wellington, New Zealand

The Mount Victoria Tunnel in the New Zealand capital city of Wellington is 623 metres (slightly more than a third of a mile) long and 5 metres (16.4 ft) in height, connecting Hataitai to the centre of Wellington and the suburb of Mount Victoria, under the mount of the same name. It is part of State Highway 1.

The tunnel was built in 15 months) investigating long term transport options for the route. The study indicates that a new tunnel would cost around (NZ)$170 million. During World War II, the government planned to use the tunnel as an air raid shelter if Wellington were attacked. However, the plan was scrapped, as the tunnel was thought to be too vulnerable to assault from either side by hostile troops.

A well known local story revolves around a murder that occurred during the construction of the Mount Victoria Tunnel. A young woman named Phyllis Avis Symons (17) was murdered by George Errol Coats (29), who buried her alive in the fill from the tunnel. It is suspected that the girl was pregnant by her lover and the story was later covered in the Wellington newspapers. Upon learning of the murder, police ordered workers to excavate the tunnel's fill in order to find the victim's body
Phyllis Symons was buried in Karori Cemetery.

Around 45,000 vehicles pass through the Mount Victoria each day. The tunnel also accommodates pedestrians and cyclists, who use an elevated ramp on the north side of the roadway. In the late 1970s, a number of crime incidents resulted in an alarm system being installed based on buttons spaced along the length of the pedestrian ramp; the system was removed several years later, as it proved ineffective. Recent additions include new lighting, CCTV cameras, brighter cleanable side panels and pollution control. These have significantly improved safety in the tunnel. The tunnel currently is a traffic bottleneck in the morning peak from around 7.30 to 9.00am on the Hataitai side with traffic sometimes backing up over 1 km and in the afternoon peak between 5 and 6pm on the city side with queuing back around 0.5 km. Buses to the eastern suburbs bypass this congestion by using the much older single lane Hataitai bus tunnel.

The tunnel received a safety overhaul in 2016. This included a repainting of the interior, replacement of lighting with LED bulbs, and ventilation improvements. The control rooms were also refurbished and an additional one was added.

Following the opening of the Wellington Airport in 1959 it was identified that due to the additional traffic that this would generate a second tunnel would be needed. However it wasn't until 1974 that a approximately 2.5 metres diameter pilot tunnel was dug through the hill over a 12 month period. The intention was to expand the tunnel out to 10m over the next three years but the plans was cancelled by budget constraints and the entrance was bricked up in 1981. The NZTA still owns 31 properties which were meant to have been used for the tunnel access. More recently, the New Zealand government has proposed a second tunnel. This was initially proposed as a public transport tunnel in 2022 as part of the Let's Get Wellington Moving project. Following the 2023 general election, the new government scrapped the initiative and changed these plans into a tunnel for general traffic.