Central Motorway Junction

Central Motorway Junction
Spaghetti Junction
Southern section of the Central Motorway Junction from the Upper Queen Street bridge
Location
Auckland CBD, Auckland, New Zealand
Coordinates	36°51′37″S 174°45′36″E / 36.860380°S 174.760030°E / -36.860380; 174.760030
Roads at junction	SH 1 (Northern Motorway) SH 1 (Southern Motorway) SH 16 (Northwestern Motorway)
Construction
Type	Spaghetti
Constructed	1969-2006
Opened	December 2006 (2006-12)
Maintained by	New Zealand Transport Agency

The Central Motorway Junction or CMJ (best known as Spaghetti Junction and rarely as Central Motorway Intersection^[1]), is the intersection of State Highways 1 and 16, just south of the central business district of Auckland. A multilevel structure (three traffic levels crossing in several locations), it has been described as a "fiendishly complicated, multi-layered puzzle of concrete, steel and asphalt". Carrying around 200,000 vehicles a day, it is one of the busiest stretches of road in New Zealand.^[2]

The central motorway junction forms the intersection between three major motorways: the Northern Motorway (SH1), the Southern Motorway (SH1), and the Northwestern Motorway (SH16), and has several off-ramps for access to the city centre. It is mainly in gullies and cuttings around the CBD, and its construction 1960–1970s removed whole neighbourhoods.

It has somewhat of a hybrid function, falling between a typical ‘X’ interchange and ring road around the city centre. All linkages are direct and there is no separate ring road. The interchange and associated structures encircle the Auckland CBD on three sides, the Auckland waterfront to the north forming the fourth 'border' of central Auckland.