SH1: Almost there
The New Zealand Transport Agency has promised State Highway 1 north of Kaiko¯ura will open on Friday – and it looks like they are going to keep their promise.
But Thursday’s announcement that the road will open in the afternoon has confirmed what many suspected; the roadworkers will need every last minute they can get.
Earthquake recovery manager Tim Crow says crews will use the morning to move trucks and equipment off the highway before it opens to the public for the first time since the Kaiko¯ura earthquake in November last year.
‘‘Our road crews will be working up until the last minute to get the road ready,’’ Crow says.
The Sandpit and The Pines
The first major set of roadworks, about 90 kilometres south of Blenheim, is almost ready to be sealed.
SH1 at The Sandpit split at the centre line in the earthquake and the southbound lane slid about 6 metres down the hill.
Now the road is back at its original height, and just needs to be sealed. Then road markings and a new silver guard rail will finish the job.
For North Canterbury Transport Infrastructure Recovery (NCTIR) site manager Julia Roberts, the end of work at The Sandpit has been seven months coming.
‘‘It’s a huge feat to build a retaining wall this quickly,’’ she says.
The wall is comprised of hundreds of gabion rock baskets, finally finished on November 28, Roberts says.
‘‘It’s cool but it’s always Murphy’s Law, as you get closer to the end you see those bits that aren’t quite right and you just have to fix them. Now, I’ve only got a week, but we’ll get there, we’ll get there.’’
Further south at The Pines, the road is completely finished, guard rails and all.
Roadworker Vanessa Hopkins and her family, who drove excavators and graders to lay the road, have moved on from The Pines.
‘‘I was really excited when I came back the other day and found road markings. That’s like the icing on the cake when you see that stuff,’’ Hopkins says.
‘‘Now we’re just getting the rougher patches tidied up.’’
Hopkins is excited to go home for Christmas, though she will return in January.
‘‘That grandson of mine will be waiting. We’ve had some long shifts and it’s been hard work, actually, the last few weeks. But I think everyone is looking forward to the holidays.’’
Project manager Zach Knutson says now the bigger jobs are almost finished, his attention has turned to the rest of the road in his area.
‘‘The roads always need maintaining, you don’t just build a road and leave it for 100 years. And this road hasn’t had any maintenance over the last year or so, so we’re just getting it back up to the best level we can; fixing cracks, filling potholes.’’
At the south end of The Pines, near Waipapa Bay, is ‘site 9’, where the first major landslide heading south covered the road with about 3000 cubic metres of debris.
The slip has been cleared and a one-lane unsealed road built past it.
There is still a risk the side of the hill will crumble in heavy rain, Knutson says.
A concrete retaining wall has been built between the hill and the road to catch any debris that might fall, with geotechnical engineers checking the hillside twice a day to make sure there is no risk to passing traffic.
And in the worst-case scenario, if the road is covered by a slip again, there is a back-up unsealed road that can be used to evacuate residents, Knutson says.
There are still several ‘‘stockpiles’’ – large piles of dirt and rocks – dotted along the highway where workers have moved slip debris off the road.
‘‘We’re moving them at the moment. But speed is the name of the game, and so is resources, and there’s only a limited number of trucks,’’ Knutson says. Project manager Clark Butcher oversees work along 1.6 kilometres north of Ohau Stream, one of the most frantic spots on the coast. other parts will be under construction well into next year.
‘‘After we open the road, we’ll come back each night and lay some more layers,’’ Butcher says.
It’s breeding season for the seals and new pups are being born every day. When work is finished on the highway, crews will move rocks right up to the seawall for the seals to play on.
Further south, the new Irongate Bridge, carrying traffic over the Irongate Stream, is nearing completion.
It is a huge seven-span bridge on an incline, built in 14 weeks – the fastest-built bridge of its kind in New Zealand history.
Site foreman Race Dill says 14 weeks is an ‘‘extremely short period’’ to build a bridge of this scale.
‘‘When you hear you’re going to an area that’s had an earthquake and you have to build a bridge in such a short space of time you never know what to expect,’’ Dill says.
‘‘It’s not finding the people that has been the issue, it’s the resources, because we’ve had to share resources with everyone on the NCTIR team.’’
Dill credits his crew and management for the speedy work – for good planning, managing resources as effectively as possible, and exceptional hard work.
‘‘For the boys who built this bridge, it’s just been a mammoth task ... I just hope that people take a second to enjoy the view because honestly, this is the most beautiful office views I’ve ever had, hands down.’’
Travelling on the highway
‘‘The roads always need maintaining, you don’t just build a road and leave it for 100 years.’’ Zach Knutson