Auckland City Rail Link awarded 01 Aug 2019

Construction of the stations and tunnels for the City Rail Link project in Auckland is awarded to the Link Alliance comprising Downer New Zealand, Vinci Construction and Soletanche Bachy, with engineers Aecom, Tonkin & Taylor and WSP Opus. The signing of the alliance agreement contact with delivery partner CRL Ltd follows selection in April of Link Alliance as the preferred bidder and details of a NZ$1 billion increase in the project to NZ$4.4 billion after review of project costs. The contact signing comes after approval by the New Zealand central Government and Auckland Council of the additional funding.

Route of the new City Rail Link

To ensure project momentum was not lost during final alliance agreement negotiations, the Link Alliance began work on NZ$75 million of early works. Construction of the early works, under three separate contracts, for works at lower Queen Street/Britomart to convert a terminus station to a through station; for the route under Albert Street in the city centre; and for utility-based work at Mt Eden, is also underway and progressing.

Contract C3 works include:

Twin bored tunnels – Excavation of 3.4km of parallel 7m diameter TBM bored running tunnel between Mount Eden Station and Aotea Station, and a fully grade-separated junction within mined caverns connecting with two cut-and-cover tunnels to form east and west facing connections to the existing North Auckland Line (Fig 1).

Aotea Station – A 15m deep, 300m long cut-and-cover station, including platforms, lifts, escalators, service equipment rooms, entrances at Victoria and Wellesley Streets, utility diversions and connections, reinstatement of streets and foundations for an over site development at the Wellesley Street entrance.

Karangahape Station – A 32m deep mined underground station with an entrance at Mercury Lane and at Beresford Square, including services, architectural finishes, utilities and foundations for an over site development above the Mercury lane entrance.

Scope of the works in contract C3

Mount Eden Station – A new station to provide interchange between the City Rail Link (CRL) and the existing Western Line including a 7m deep open trench for the CRL platforms and concourse, an entrance at Ruru Street and foundations for over site developments.

The contract also includes

• the station group control centre, that will be fitted out by the C7 Alliance contractor;
• the tunnel and station ventilation systems, to include fans, attenuators, ductwork, louvres and control systems;
• development and implementation of fire life safety strategy within the new stations and tunnels and design and construction of fire engineering systems;
• provision of maintenance services for the three new stations.

Design of the mined station caverns at Karangahape

The Project Alliance Agreement with Link Alliance was signed in the presence of New Zealand Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff. “Given the competition world-wide to build infrastructure, the whole country can take pride in the fact that such a high calibre of international companies want to come here and help build a better future for New Zealand,” said Minister Twyford. “The project will double the capacity of our rail network,” said Mayor Goff. ”Signing of this agreement will help ensure the delivery of the world-class transport system our city needs.”

Work on contract C3, the largest programme of work for the City Rail Link project, can now begin towards an opening date in 2024. “As a truly international team with members from more than 25 countries, we look forward to working alongside local communities to safely construct the City Rail Link over the next five years,” said Pierre Bourgeois, Chairman of the Project Alliance Board.

Competition for the alliance agreement contract was presented by the CPB Contractors, UGL (NZ) JV with engineers Beca, McMillen Jacobs and Jacobs New Zealand.