Prior to construction of the bridge, the quickest way of getting from Auckland to the North Shore was via one of the regular passenger or vehicular ferries. By road, the shortest route was through West Auckland via Riverhead and Albany, a distance of over 40 kilometres.

• The Auckland Harbour Bridge was opened on 30th of May 1959 and it took over 200 workers around 4 years to build.
• It was made with 6500 tonnes of concrete and nearly 6000 tonnes of steel.
• When the bridge was first built it only had four lanes but after a few years they needed to make The bridge bigger to cope with all the traffic so they added two lanes to each side. The new lanes were called “clippons” because they were made in Japan, shipped to New Zealand on huge ships and then clipped into place with huge steel pins and rods.
• The Auckland Harbour Bridge cost 16 million dollars to build over 40 years ago! The clippons were another 13.5 million dollars1
• They decided to build a harbour bridge because the traffic wanting to go from Auckland City to the North Shore or vice versa was growing all the time and the trip round the harbour through West Auckland used to take hours.
• Before the bridge was built vehicles and passengers also used ferries to get from one side to the other. Ferries are boats that take either cars or passengers or both.
• The span between the water and the bridge is about 15 stories high – high enough for most yachts to sail under but not high enough for many of the cruise ships, tankers and cargo ships that come into the Auckland Wharfs
• the bridge is 1,021 meters long (nearly 10 rugby fields long)