Weather closes Lemons Hill again
The NZ Transport Agency closed State Highway 11 at Lemons Hill to all traffic from Friday night, thanks to the gloomy (and accurate) weather forecast.
A geotechnical engineer was to assess the slip. Northland system manager Jacqui Hori-Hoult said it might be possible to open it again for limited periods.
“We appreciate that school holidays have come to an end and that more people will want to use State Highway 11 (this) week rather than go via the detour route, but we won’t put the safety of our crews and motorists at risk,” she said. “It’s better that we provide certainty now about the road being closed until Tuesday morning so people won’t be disappointed or inconvenienced.”
Far North District councillor Kelly Stratford said the council had asked NZTA for more openings when it was safe.
“Our communities appreciate the road being opened to allow locals to get to work, and especially when school starts.
“The extra daily travel has been a financial strain on some families,” she said.
Hundreds of motorists took advantage of last week’s limited opening times, the first since the slip came down on February 13. The slip was checked every day before vehicles travelled under stop/go control in each direction, between 7:30am and 8:30am and 4:30pm and 6pm. She says those opening times would continue, depending on the weather.
“We have listened to feedback from motorists that the road closure points required vehicles to queue on a slope, which wasn’t ideal for those with manual transmission, so we’ve moved them back a bit, meaning a couple of extra minutes of travel in each direction through the work site,” she added.
NZTA has appealed to drivers to observe the temporary speed limit of 30km/h, andnot slow down to look at the slip.
Two weeks of fine weather had allowed good progress to be made.
“We have removed about half of the unstable material from the hillside, but in recent days we’ve uncovered a new area of instability. So we’re proceeding with caution, but making good progress to the point where we may soon be able to start working at night to speed up the job,” she said.
The detour route is via SH1, SH10 and SH11 (Pakaraka and Puketona Junction).
Sign up at www.nzta.govt.nz/ sh11-lemons-hill-slip to receive email updates or go to www.journeys.nzta.govt.nz/sh11