Safety first, expressway second
A hazardous stretch of Waikato’s SH1 that was pulled from the expressway list is in line for more safety improvements instead.
The NZ Transport Agency has released plans for short-term safety improvements for three Waikato state highway projects including Cambridge to Piarere, as well as planning for future upgrades.
The collection of improvements, including a new intersection, comes after the Labour-led government reversed National’s plan to extend the four lane Waikato Expressway southward to the SH29 Piarere turnoff – a notorious black spot for crashes between Cambridge and Tirau.
Labour’s 10-year plan for land transport instead included investment in road safety and rapid rail at the expense of state highway upgrades, putting the four-lane extension on hold.
The Cambridge to Piarere section has instead been undergoing safety upgrades over the past 12 months.
These are likely to continue with the possible addition of median barriers, side barriers, and safer access for people living along the road.
NZTA’s general manager of System Design and Delivery, Brett Gliddon, said there was an acceptance that SH1 had safety issues and work needed to be done improving it, but a whole new road could be the answer in a decade.
‘‘We also recognise in the longer term we are going to need a new offline route [new road] and we will need to complete the business case for that and then we can work out the exact timing of that.’’
Gliddon said the timing of either this or an expressway extension would be driven by capacity – when the existing SH1 gets to the point that the two lanes are no longer adequate for the traffic volume.
‘‘It isn’t at that point at the moment and is likely to be 10 years away.’’
It was too early to tell if the best option was a full expressway extension or simply a new twolane highway on a different route. ‘‘We’ve got two lanes already. ‘‘You may just find that with the Cambridge to Piarere if you build a new offline route you only need to build two lanes because then in the corridor you have four lanes.
One major decision that is likely sooner rather than later is improving the intersection of SH1 and SH29, the turnoff to Tauranga.
While not guaranteed the likely prognosis in the next couple of years is a big rural roundabout similar to that which was built further south of Tı¯rau.
A possible speed reduction in the area could also be looked at.
Hamilton East National MP David Bennett was a strong advocate of the expressway extension and said the announcement is a stop-gap measure by the government.
‘‘The $9 million safety improvements were already part of the deal for the new road. They were going to happen anyway, that was to make the road safe while we were building the other (new) one,’’ Bennett said.
The roundabout improvement was a way to avoid doing the full project, he contended.
‘‘They’ve taken away the construction of the project and that means that the Waikato has no roading infrastructure plans of any scale after 2020, so that means we don’t have any real investment post the finishing of the expressway.’’
In other NZTA plans, the Pokeno interchange will be upgraded in the medium term, with additional capacity east of the SH1 intersection providing for a safer merge between SH2 and SH1. The Mangatawhiri, Kopuku, Maramarua and Mangatarata sections will remain a twolane highway, one lane in each direction, with intersection improvements such as roundabouts, and speed limits taking into account both regular traffic and farm vehicles mixing on the road.
SH29 between Te Poi and Tauriko will also be looked at for safety and resilience improvements, and will likely include better intersections.
A final decision on which projects get funding will be made in February.