New $630m road saves 9 minutes a day
How much is nine minutes of your life worth? Enough to warrant spending $630 million on a new expressway?
According to a Stuff road test of the old State Highway 1 through the Kapiti Coast and the 18-kilometre expressway, commuters can save nine minutes every day by using the new road.
We took a trip from Peka Peka to Wellington on the old road at peak morning commuting time before the expressway opened, and repeated the exercise on the new one.
Both legs were on a Wednesday, about 7.40am, and we timed the stretch from Peka Peka in the north to Poplar Ave in the south, where the new works finish.
The first trip, in mid-February, turned out to be a relatively light traffic day, without the common snarl-ups through Waikanae and Paraparaumu.
The journey took 18 minutes 25 seconds as we navigated traffic lights, roundabouts, and the speed-suffocating array of 50kmh, 70kmh and 80kmh zones.
Flash forward a few weeks and we drove the expressway.
Once past the cone jungle at Peka Peka, the road itself was smooth, uncluttered, and almost pleasant.
We almost halved the time – down to 9 minutes 30 seconds. And that was taking a leisurely drive, without threatening the speed limit.
It turns out our nine-minute saving is two minutes more than the NZ Transport Agency predicted before the expressway opened.
Highway manager Neil Walker said agency modelling ‘‘indicated that the Mackays to Peka Peka expressway had the potential to improve travel times through the area by approximately seven minutes’’.
He said people were experiencing shorter and more reliable journeys through the coast, although the agency did not yet have reliable data, just two weeks after the opening.
The current stretch is the central section of three projects: the $850m Transmission Gully route in the south, and a $330m section from Peka Peka to north of Otaki being the others.
So in 2020, or thereabouts, when all three are up and running, there will be a new near-$2 billion time trial to be done.
We’ll be ready when they are.