Work doesn't stop for Hamilton section of Waikato Expressway

Tuesday, 7 January 2020

While motorists are off enjoying the sun, surf and holidays, work is continuing on the Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway. 

But most people will not be able to see the results for a while yet with majority of the work happening where the public don't yet travel. 

The $607 million Hamilton section is the last piece of the expressway puzzle which began in 2016 and has been designed and built by a group comprising Fletcher, Beca, Higgins, and Coffey, in alliance with the NZ Transport Agency.

The seventh section of the expressway hasn't been without its problems with two unseasonably wet earthwork seasons pushing the project's completion date out to late 2021. 

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But when completed the Hamilton section will be 22km long connecting at Ngāruawāhia in the north and Tamahere in the south, NZTA principal project manager Jo Wilton said. 

'The Hamilton section will join at Lake Road - which is called the Northern Interchange and it connects in the south at Tamahere interchange and there are three interchanges in between those.' 

There is one at Resolution Drive in the north - which is the Flagstaff/ Rototuna area.  

'Then one at Greenhill - where the Wayward Pigeon restaurant is and the last interchange is Ruakura.' 

The Greenhill area has a new road layout - with Pardoa Boulevard the new link from the Wairere Drive and Gordonton Road roundabout to the expressway. 

The final one is at Ruakura. 

'There is Ruakura Road which will tie into a new road to partially service the Tainui Group Holdings inland port development.' 

The Tamahere area is where most road works can be seen by motorists. 

'So the main thing people can see at the moment is the bridge which has been there for quite a while. So this is why we have been switching the traffic over to build various parts of it because it's such a wide thing and you've got roads coming onto it and we've got to move the traffic over a bit and then move them over again. 

The public will sometimes be able to see some temporary works going on so that road workers can drive over to finish off the permanent bits.

'There are multiple stages to that particular build because it's quite intricate and the traffic volume through there is large. It's the busiest piece of road in Hamilton - which is why we've had to be very careful how we do it.'

There are 17 bridges on the section, with the new Horsham Downs Bridge the last one to open earlier this month.

However, one which is the most challenging is the Cambridge Rd bridge at Tamahere. It will eventually have a two-lane off-ramp over the expressway and then will curve under the East-West Link bridge to join the expressway south to Cambridge. 

The Hamilton section has approximately 650,000 plants  across 610,799 square metres of the project - around 50 per cent of those are already in the ground. 

There is also a Gully Restoration Implementation plan for the Mangaonua, Mangaharakeke and Mangaone areas and combined there will be 10.2 hectares of restoration planting plus another 1.2 hectares in the the East-West Link Gully. 

Over summer 200,000 cubic metres of earth will be moved - with five million already having been moved on the project so far.  

The last bit of work that will happen on the Hamilton section will be the Powells Rd underpass, which should be finished about the same time road markings are going on. 

Before the Hamilton section opens Huntly will celebrate its completion with a public opening on February 15. 

Once fully completed the Waikato Expressway will be a four-lane highway from the Bombay Hills to the south of Cambridge.