Rolleston locals ‘fed up’ with overlapping roadworks in NZ’s fastest growing district

Sunday, 8 September 2024

Different roadworks projects in Rolleston near Christchurch are causing traffic headaches for locals and others passing through.

Drivers who would normally have used one of three main routes in and out of Rolleston are now all heading down Rolleston Drive to get onto SH1.

A resident said overlapping works were causing drivers to take risks, and she knew people who had witnessed accidents or near misses.

Rolleston commuters are frustrated with Selwyn District Council for planning roadworks they say are causing major traffic congestion on the main routes in and out of town.

The Selwyn district was crowned New Zealand’s fastest-growing area in the latest census, with 17,583 people having moved there in the last five years.

Upgrades required to accommodate the increased flow of traffic have caused major disruption, with some people saying the council should have timed them better to avoid rush hour gridlock.

Rowena Holder said people who would normally have used one of the three main routes in and out of Rolleston are now heading down Rolleston Drive to try to get onto State Highway 1.

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“That’s just caused incredible congestion and delays for people. I hate to think what the buses are going through trying to get people to work and to school on time,” she said.

“It can take half an hour to get from one side of Rolleston to the other, it’s ridiculous.”

Although she is not “against progress”, Holder said the roadworks should have been co-ordinated better to prioritise people getting where they need to go safely.

She said the overlapping works were causing drivers to take risks so they could get to work on time and she knew people who had witnessed accidents or near misses as a result.

“People are taking the biggest risks to get into the smallest gaps,” she said.

Another local, Nic Koster, said it seemed “one hand wasn’t talking to the other” within Selwyn District Council and that bad planning had led to the major delays.

“There seems to be a real lack of communication between parties,” he said.

Koster said although he supported the improvements taking place, they should have been staggered rather than taking place all at once.

He said traffic light issues at the roadworks were also causing delays.

“As you get back into the Rolleston area, the lights won’t be sequenced well so you’ll have a 10 to 15 minute wait when nobody’s coming through.”

A post on Selwyn District Council’s Facebook page announcing the Levi Road roadworks garnered over 200 comments, with many people expressing their frustrations.

In response, the council commented saying it “understand[s] and regret[s] the inconvenience” the upgrade would cause.

“The widening and road rehabilitation project is necessary to accommodate the increased traffic flow on this arterial road for the next 25 years.”

The council said although the works had been timed strategically to minimise disruption, delays would be difficult to avoid.

It hoped the community understood that the disruption was temporary, “yet necessary, to create an infrastructure fit for the fastest growing district in the country”.

The council’s executive director of infrastructure, Tim Mason, said keeping up with the growing population was a “constant juggling act” and although the council regretted the inconvenience caused, it was impossible to avoid.

He said the work on Levi Road, which was one of the key routes in and out of Rolleston, was an important upgrade that was “anticipated for a while and requested by [the] community”.

“We had a short window to get it done, otherwise we were into a situation where we would have been causing a much more significant disruption to the traffic.

“We are continuing to monitor the road and look at ways we can minimise inconvenience to people,” he said.

Roadworks across Rolleston are set to continue until late November.