The damaged strut on the Auckland Harbour Bridge will have to be completely removed, says the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.

Transport services manager Brett Gliddon today said the strut would have to be cut at the top and the bottom, taken out and a new piece manufactured and installed back in place.

He said to do this they would need to put load back into that strut.

He said this would be accomplished by using big jacks at the top and bottom and tension would be put back into the strut so it would operate as it was supposed to and the load across the bridge was redistributed.

Gliddon revealed details of the temporary fix which included cutting the damaged strut halfway up, putting in a new section of steel and bolting it to the bridge at the bottom.

"It will allow us to open the main part of the bridge to have light vehicles running on it and if load needs to run through the strut the new piece of steel will allow that to be transferred," he said.

This meant only a limited level of vehicles would be able to use the bridge near the repair.

A North Shore commuter has taken two hours and 35 minutes to travel from a northern suburb to the city this morning.

Newstalk ZB newsreader Malcolm Jordan said he was confronted by a staggering level of traffic congestion.

For most of the journey from Torbay to the CBD he was moving an inch every 10 minutes.

"I could have driven to Hamilton and back by the time it took to get me into work today," he said.