Potential traffic chaos and gridlock awaits thousands of commuters back from holiday and heading into Auckland's CBD tomorrow

Auckland has been reduced to a post-Christmas maze of orange traffic cone and one-lane roads as 33 city centre streets are poised to be disrupted by road works.

Auckland Transport, which is overseeing all the projects, notes that the scale of roadworks this holiday period is above average.

Auckland's central business association, Heart of the City, says the works would ultimately be beneficial, but it's keeping a close eye on the impact on its members.

AT's Mark Hannan says January - when many have left town and the weather's good - is targeted every year to undertake a substantial bulk of the road upgrades and it is nothing dramatically out of the ordinary.