What happened to the bridge, when will it be fixed, are we ever getting another harbour crossing – and how long will it take to get home tonight?

Few of us remember a time before the bridge. Its eight glorious lanes run from St Mary’s Bay across the Waitematā harbour to Northcote. Without it Auckland and the North Shore may have remained separated forever, joined only via the Northwestern motorway instead of by an AJ Hackett bungy jump stop.

Now, damage to the bridge threatens our way of life. They’re calling it Carmageddon, an example of how one small act of God can stop up Auckland’s transport arteries. Traffic has slowed through Ponsonby and the CBD as a result of lane closures, affecting even those who never head north.

What’s the damage?

On Friday at 11.10am, a truck from Castles Parcels travelling north was hit by a 127km/h gust of wind, pushing it across two lanes and over the moveable lane barrier, where it became stuck. A truck heading south and carrying a shipping container was blown across at the same time, hitting the bridge’s superstructure.

A steel upright was sheared off and there was damage to the bridge overarch, meaning the centre four lanes were closed off.

Dr Theuns Henning, CEO of Infrastructure Decision Support, told the Science Media Centre the truck crash was “a freak event that could not have been foreseen”.

“The Auckland Harbour Bridge is well maintained and the right protocols are in place for strong winds. The consequences could have been much worse had an efficient infrastructure maintenance plan not been in place,” he said.

When it was completed in 1959, the bridge’s projected life span was 50 years. Industrial pacemakers and prosthetics have kept it going for more than a decade beyond that. It was initially built with four lanes, and in 1969, two “clip-ons” were added to each side. They’ve been plagued with issues since. They’re currently the only lanes available for use.

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency has said the north and southbound clip-on lanes are safe to use as they have their own support structure separate from the central lanes.

Tonight, two lanes will close for repairs; but further work on fixing the damage could take up to five weeks.

How long will it take to get home?

On Saturday, it reportedly took one Devonport dweller six hours to get home from the city. Since then, NZTA has been asking commuters to work from home where possible, but for some it’s not an option. Commuters still battling the bridge this week are saying it’s taking over an hour to reach their homes on the Shore, even with the improvised Western Ring “bull run” in place.

Spinoff staffer and North Shore-dweller Joe Canham said he’s been taking the western route into the city, and timed the commute between his home in Campbell’s Bay and work in Morningside as about an hour. It usually takes him about half an hour going via the bridge. He tried his luck heading north on the bridge yesterday evening, and called it “soul destroying”. “I’ll be taking the west way home tonight,” he said.

Stuff reports that yesterday 11,000 vehicles headed south on the bridge between 6am and 10am, 16,000 fewer than at the same time last week.

What are they doing to the bridge?

NZTA will begin work on a temporary fix tonight, with repairs to the damaged strut taking place from 9pm through to 5am. The lower half of the damaged load-bearing truss will be removed and replaced.

This will allow two lanes from the centre bridge to reopen while work continues on a more permanent solution. Work could continue on Wednesday night.

Closures to enable this include the southbound lanes between Esmonde Road and Hobson Street, the Esmonde Road southbound on-ramp, and the Onewa Road southbound on-ramp.

NZTA’s general manager of transport services, Brett Gliddon, said it was a complex undertaking. “[The replacement] has never been done before so the bridge team must do extensive testing on the bridge before opening it up to live traffic,” he said.

“Once the temporary fix is in place there will be real-life testing with heavy vehicles to ensure it performs to the design specifications and requirements. Only then will a final decision be made about whether the temporary fix is suitable to allow the reopening of additional lanes.”

Permanent repairs are still weeks away from installation.

Do we need a new way to get across the Waitematā?

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has promised that a second harbour crossing, likely a tunnel under the harbour, will start construction by 2030. Auckland Council will have to find money for this alongside its City Rail Link construction. The tunnel is currently projected to cost about $8 billion.

Professor John Tookey, professor of construction at AUT, told the Science Media Centre the damage showed how dependent Aucklanders have grown on the bridge. “A non-fatal (thankfully) accident on the bridge leads to damage that will impact traffic flows and economic activity for weeks if not months,” he said.

“There is a deep and expanding need to take the pressure off this vital piece of our city infrastructure in order to maintain that idea of being a liveable city for the future.”

Being in the midst of a global pandemic does funny things to you, finds Michelle Langstone as she gives in to an overwhelming urge to return to the Auckland amusement park of her youth.

I don’t know if it’s nostalgia working, but my husband and I had an overwhelming urge to go back to Rainbow’s End the whole time we were in the second Covid-19 lockdown. Unconsciously I think we wanted to feel like kids again, unencumbered by the worries that currently beset the world. We were lured by the distinct lack of visitors; the park is operating on restricted numbers, running at about 40% capacity because of Covid-19. Because we hate crowds, and also waiting, it seemed a dream opportunity to get on the rides and run around like maniacs for an afternoon.

I did not anticipate the unsettling feeling of an amusement park that is mostly empty, and coming upon rides where the attendants are in full PPE gear, dousing the carriages and harnesses with some kind of disinfectant mist, which wafted across the air and bathed everyone waiting in line. It was unsettling seeing people being escorted on and off rides in their bubbles by people in masks and gloves. It was like watching people being led to their doom.

The last time I was at Rainbow’s End it was the early 2000s and I was shooting a Motorola cell phone commercial. I had to ride in the front car of what was then called the Coca-Cola Corkscrew, and we did 17 laps of the ride before the director got the shots he wanted. By that stage I was confused about my own gravity, and had a splitting headache. I thought I’d never go back to that cursed rollercoaster, but pandemics do weird things to all of us, and I practically ran to wait in line for it. It’s called the Corkscrew Coaster now, and it’s exactly the same as it always was: short, bumpy, and quite slow.

Rainbow’s End is still a good place to go to if you want to see some toxic masculinity on display. “Hey Karl – you’re a pussy!” yelled one guy, as he emerged, triumphant, from the Corkscrew Coaster. I don’t know why he looked so smug – it’s pretty tame as far as coasters go, and other people coming off the ride behind him were just barely out of nappies. Poor Karl, red-faced in the sunshine, muttered something like “already did it last time I was here” and the whole group wandered off, abusing each other at the top of their lungs. It’s reassuring that people can still be total eggs in a pandemic.

There were still teenagers waiting in line for the log flume, having a pash while Living on a Prayer blasted over the loudspeakers. I used to dream of being an attendant on the log flume. At 13 I had a detailed fantasy about how I’d have to go through the ride at the end of the day to make sure there was no damage, and I’d get a pash from my co-worker right before you come down the big slide at the end. Unfortunately the log flume is now a pit of despair. They’re not even trying to hide the fake rocks any more. They’ve put up those disco lights you hire for kids’ birthdays in long stretches of the tunnel to jazz it up a bit, but by and large the only fun to be had is the retro amusement of travelling in a fake log over some heavily chlorinated water. They’ve taken away the gigantic fluffy spider with the googly eyes. It’s a mess in there.

In other places, though, Rainbow’s End is triumphant. They’ve got a ride called the Stratosfear, and you have to choose if you want to wait in line for the tamer version, or the intense one. It’s like a gigantic spinning wheel on a stick and it gets higher and higher and spins faster and faster, until it’s too high and too fast, you almost cry. We hung upside down at the top of the ride, my torso pressed hard against the straps of the harness, and I thought: a malfunction is imminent. I will be flung onto the motorway and that still won’t be the worst part of 2020. I screamed at my husband even though there was nothing he could do to help me – social distancing meant there was a seat between us so I couldn’t even crush his hand in terror. I nearly spewed. The kid on the other side of me looked like he had fainted. It was brilliant.

There’s a ride called the Powersurge which, legend says, once froze in the middle of the ride and left everyone hanging upside down. No one has confirmed if it was a machine malfunction, or if the ride was stopped because some kids were spitting and ruining it for everyone. We loved that one, staggering out like we’d been inside a giant washing machine. My husband lost his cool on the Fearfall and made a sound I have never heard before, a kind of yelp you can only make when the contents of your stomach rushes up your throat and you didn’t expect it. It didn’t deter us from filling up with as much joyful sugary goodness as we could manage. There was no queue at the ice cream shop so we did our bit for the economy and went back twice. We gave it a hoon on the Scorpion Karts and I got stuck behind some punks who wouldn’t let me past. I forgave them because Rainbow’s End induces benevolence. Also I got kicked off the Scorpion Karts once as a kid and I didn’t want any trouble.

I think we spent three hours in the park all up, and got around all the rides we wanted. It was cheerful watching kids running around shrieking with delight. It was a bit weird without the crowds, and weirder still to walk up to a ride and give the attendant a fright because nobody had come by for half an hour. Nonetheless, by the time I left I had a sugar headache and was grumpy on the car ride home, and that’s exactly the outcome I had hoped for. If the worst complaint you have is that you shouldn’t have gone for the bag of candy floss after the two ice creams and the hot chips, then life is pretty good. For an afternoon I almost forgot that the world is embroiled in a state of catastrophe and I’m often quite worried and sad, and that’s worth the price of admission alone.