Colombo Street

Colombo Street

Colombo Street (left to right) at Hereford Street
Length	6.2 km (3.9 mi)
Postal code	8022 (south end to Heathcote River) 8023 (Heathcote River to Moorhouse Ave) 8011 (Moorhouse Ave to Avon River) 8013 (Avon River to Bealey Ave) 8014 (Bealey Ave to north end)
South end	Dyers Pass Road / Cashmere Road / Centaurus Road roundabout
North end	Edgeware Road
Construction
Construction start	1851

Colombo Street is a main road of the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. It runs south-north through the centre of Christchurch with a break at Cathedral Square. As with many other central Christchurch streets, it is named for a colonial Anglican bishopric, Colombo, Sri Lanka in what at the time was known as Ceylon. Parts of the street which run through Sydenham were known as Addison Street during the 1880s, and some parts were known as Colombo Road.

Colombo Street runs for 6.2 kilometres (3.9 mi) due north-south. As with most Christchurch north-south streets, its numbering starts at its southern end. Like most of central Christchurch, the street is flat. It starts 4.0 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of the city centre at a roundabout junction with Dyers Pass Rd, which descends from the Port Hills and Cashmere and Centaurus Roads, which run along the foot of the hills. For its first few hundred metres the street runs north-northeast through the suburb of Somerfield, before turning due north and crossing the Heathcote River in the residential suburb of Beckenham. The suburb of Sydenham starts once Tennyson Street is crossed. Between Tennyson Street and Strickland Street is a suburban shopping centre. Colombo Street crosses the Christchurch ring route (SH 76, at that point called Brougham Street) and enters the commercial/industrial part of Sydenham.

North of Sydenham, Colombo Street crosses the Christchurch-Lyttelton railway line via a flyover then passes beneath the Moorhouse Avenue flyover, entering the Christchurch Central City. It passes the Bus Exchange, the city's central bus depot and crosses the major pedestrian mall, City Mall (Cashel Street) before being interrupted by Cathedral Square, the heart of Christchurch. In the square it crosses the loop of the Christchurch tramway circuit, crossing it again two blocks north at Armagh Street. From Armagh Street it skirts the edge of Victoria Square and crosses the Avon River before passing the James Hay Theatre, part of the Christchurch Town Hall.