Fast-track to a bottleneck
Motorists are venting their frustration after coming to a sudden halt at the end of the country’s newest 110kph road.
The $837 million Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway opened its four lanes on Thursday night.
While the newly transformed SH1 is planned to reduce travel time between Auckland and southern Waikato, motorists have come to a sudden standstill at a one-lane bottleneck where the new section hooks up to the existing network at Tamahere and workers are still installing safety measures.
The 22km piece of SH1 is the last piece of the expressway project, allowing for a 110kph stretch from Hampton Downs to south of Cambridge, bypassing Hamilton.
However, to have a speed limit of 110km there are safety requirements and that includes safety barriers and median barriers that are being retrofitted in some places along the expressway – including Tamahere.
One person commenting on the Waikato Expressway Facebook page pointed out the area had been a hotbed of roadworks for the past two years.
‘‘I just don’t understand how the Tamahere area wasn’t brought up to 110kph spec weeks ago so north and south of it could just run seamlessly.’’
Another wrote on Saturday, ‘‘Absolute debacle of traffic on the ‘‘open’’ expressway. Northbound traffic stationary back to Pencarrow Road and then when you head south from Hamilton they have 4 lanes merging into one before Tamahere’’
Waka Kotahi Waikato system manager, Cara Lauder said they are making safety improvements on this section of SH1 to bring it up to the same standard as the rest of the Waikato Expressway.
‘‘The safety improvements include the installation of crash-preventing roadside wire-rope barriers. The lane reduction and temporary lower speed limits are in place in order to ensure that our contractors can carry out this important work safely on this busy section of SH1 with high traffic volumes.’’
There have been temporary steel barriers installed alongside the live traffic to keep people safe, in particular the road workers from live traffic.
Lauder said the work has been programmed to be completed in 2022. ‘‘While the temporary measures in place while the work is completed will cause some delays, the benefits of opening the Hamilton section of the expressway as soon as possible outweigh any temporary inconvenience.’’
Hamilton East-based National list MP David Bennett said it was dangerous that a 110kmh expressway was suddenly reduced to one lane.
He had been fielding lots of complaints, and had seen lots of negative feedback online.
’’The main thing is, they have had five years to get ready for this opening. We [the National Party] had signed it and contracted it,’’ Bennett said.
‘‘It’s waiting for an accident to happen.’’
Bennett said it was frustrating that work on the road wasn’t truly finished, despite the big and public opening.
‘‘All they [Waka Kotahi and the Government] had to do was finish it off, and they couldn’t do that.
‘‘It’s a project that will make a big difference to the region, and now has teething problems.’’