Peacocke Bridge

Peacocke Bridge is a girder bridge under construction over the Waikato River in Hamilton, New Zealand. The bridge on Wairere Drive is part of the Southern Links, which will complete a ring road around Hamilton. It will link Hamilton East with a new suburb of Peacocke. Construction started in 2020, though the plan originated in 1962.

The bridge is formed with 2,650 tonnes of steel and is expected to be completed by mid 2024, at a cost of $160.2M, though budgeted at $135M in 2020, estimated at no more than $60M in 2017 and formerly at $40M. The bridge was delayed by COVID-19 and Cyclone Gabrielle and other storms. The four-lane bridge was designed by Bloxam Burnett & Olliver, and is being built by HEB Construction. It will include bus lanes and cycle paths, and will also carry the Peacocke to Pukete sewer line. The river was closed to boats during construction.

Both banks of the river have been stabilised to support the bridge. The north bank, next to the bridge abutments, has a 50-degree slope, rising 45 m, or 35 m, and was stabilised with 150 mm soil nails. The total length of the bridge is 215 m, including the 11 m mechanically stabilised earth wall of the southern bridge abutment, which is on compressible, loose Taupō Pumice alluvial soils, of the river terraces. The bridge itself is 180 m long (made up of a 70 m northern span, 50 m central span and a 60 m southern span), 26.2 m wide, on 38 m, closely spaced, bridge piles, with 35 m earth anchors and over 600 8 m soil nails. The bridge is over 30 m above the normal river level.

The main support is a pier on the south bank of the river, formed of weathering steel, in two lattice-shaped, 30 x Y sections, each weighing over 200 tonnes. The lattice is made up of 2.2 x box-section welded plates. They were lifted into position by a 600-tonne crane.

Wairere Drive cycling and pedestrian bridge
Installation of a 71 m curved pedestrian/cycleway bridge weighing over 200 tonnes, made up of five weathered-steel sections, 70 m north of Peacocke Bridge, was started in 2022. The bridge crosses the extension of Wairere Drive, to maintain the Te Awa link to Hamilton Gardens. Māori design is reflected in the bridge, with two 25 m steel masts, representing a waharoa (gateway), and influenced by a taurapa (carved waka sternpost). The motif is a takarangi (intersecting spiral), as seen on sternposts, denoting a threshold.