They’ve got their town back
Saturday, 23 December 2023
A year agoNZTA Waka Kotahi promised the public that the new Peka Peka to Ōtaki Expressway would open to traffic by Christmas.
They beat that eadline by two days.
On December 23, 2022, State Highway 1 shifted on to a four-lane bypass that extended the Kāpiti Expressway to the north end of the Ōtaki.
One year on the town’s residents say NZTA not only gave them an expressway, but also their town back.
Riverstone Cafe co-owner Jeanine Cornelius believed her cafe had become busier since the new road opened.
“We haven't got the sheep trucks, we haven't got the traffic, but people can get a park. We're actually really holding our own and it's good.
“The bonus of the expressway is you can get straight in and you can get straight out. It's not like Waikanae or Paraparaumu where you’ve got to get off the expressway and drive quite a way into town.
“Here you can come off, grab your coffee at the caravan, and head back out again.”
In the months before the expressway opened, Ōtaki was the last major choke point between Wellington and Palmerston North.
Traffic would regularly sit in a queue along the main highway and clog the single roundabout as inter-regional commercial and holiday traffic clashed with local residents battling to simply move around their communities.
Today the road is another quiet shopping district, not unlike any other found in rural New Zealand. The murals that adorn the street are more visible and it somehow feels less claustrophobic than it did when the traffic came through.
Elevate Ōtaki chairperson Adrian Gregory believed the optimism around the road had been well placed.
“That's been confirmed by various things like new shops opening and a lot of people in the town are very comfortable about actually being able to access those shops up here, rather than fighting with passing traffic for parking.”
Gregory said when construction started in 2017 there was apprehension around the future of the town, including the loss of footfall for the businesses along the highway. .
“That was partly why Elevate Ōtaki was formed … but those concerns have not necessarily eventuated.
Gregory said some businesses had closed since the new road opened, however, that was balanced by new businesses which had not only established themselves but had also bought their premises, indicating a long term commitment to the community.
It’s not just the economic impact that the road is having either.
Traffic volumes on the Old State Highway 1 route are significantly down according to NZTA dropping from 19,203 to 7895 vehicles a day and from 134,418 to 55,268 a week.
That 59% drop in traffic volumes meant crashes had significantly reduced.
From 2018 until its opening in 2022, that section of State Highway experienced one fatal crash and 14 crashes causing serious injuries. Since the expressway opened, there have been none.
Eugenie Russell runs a garden centre at the corner of Te Horo Beach Rd and the old State Highway. She said she did not miss the way it used to be.
“Every day, I would hear the screech of brakes and wait for the boom.
“On the days leading up to Christmas, it would be standstill and it was mainly due to the traffic light pedestrian crossing in Ōtaki. I would always think to myself ‘ah, somebody's pushed the button’.
“I was always tempted to go and put little signs there saying ‘every time you push the button, you cause a national gridlock.’”
Waikanae Community Board’s Te Horo representative Michael Moore echoed a similar sentiment, saying the road had been the site of “some incredibly dangerous and violent accidents”.
“The expressway gives us a great deal of access to the city far more efficiently than we had before. We can pass those communities all the way down the Kāpiti Coast and within one hour, we can be in the centre of Wellington.”
He wasn’t concerned about the area’s character changing.
“I think one of the the gorgeous things about having a modern accessible highway through here is we can retain our rural community and the uniqueness of that and I think a lot of people who live here and came here for that reason many years ago still want to hang on to that.”
Ōtaki has a strong Māori identity, as evidenced by the murals that greet visitors along the highway.
It also hosts the Māoriland Film Festival and has a high regular usage of Te Reo in daily life.
Māoriland gallery manager Awhina Baldwin said accessing those events was easier than ever before.
“It's really good for our film festival because there's no stress about navigating through the traffic to get here.
“We know that Māoriland is a destination. We're not a place that people stumble on. So I think it's raised the profile of our town because people specifically come here now.”
Black & Co leather shop co-owner Leon Kingi said the change had been much more personal. Before the expressway heavy traffic kept locals away.
“As soon as the expressway opened, when I pop over the road to get a coffee or something, generally every day I'll bump into someone I know.
“It’s been a really nice change with locals feeling comfortable coming up here.”
Ōtaki is now waiting for the next step to its expressway. There’s still a choke point where the traffic merges on to the old and collision-prone section of the highway to Levin that can swell during holiday periods.
For now, however, most people are happy with Ōtaki’s new identity as an optional highway stop ‒ a place where one chooses to stop for a coffee rather than being forced to stop for the traffic queues.