Christmas cheer as SH25A opened in Coromandel
Friday, 15 December 2023
The Coromandel Christmas cheer has begun with the $43m Taparahi SH25A bridge restoring access to the peninsula.
A “big hole” was left 10 months ago after summer storms, including a duo of cyclones, ripped up the roading network.
The 124m long and 15m high bridge that’s about to open was put together in record time - over seven months - just in time for the Coromandel summer season.
With the storms on the back of the pandemic, spoilt summers had put a strain on the peninsula’s households, businesses, council, emergency management and tourists.
So, for Whenuakura Kayak Tours in Whangamatā, the new bridge was going to be a lifeline.
“We are all pretty stoked…all the businesses in town got really happy and we are hoping that the easier access and shorter commute from Auckland will bring more people.”
The much-anticipated bridge will be formally blessed during a dawn ceremony on Monday morning and NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi staff said it will be officially open to the public come Wednesday.
The “lego pieces” for the bridge were crafted off-site while contractors worked around the clock, clearing and stabilising the slip, drilling piles into the soil and transporting tonnes of material to the Kōpu site.
The SH25A repair job was “done quickly and well”, motoring commentator Clive Matthew-Wilson said.
It probably cost more to have the 124-metre bridge rebuilt so quickly, but I’d say it was money well spent.”
The almost seamless construction was a “gold plate standard”, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said at the site on Friday.
“I came here in April…we looked at a great big hole in the ground.”
He put the progress since his last visit down to the teams’ hard work, and said SH25A was an example of what could be done if they repealed current RMA changes and “red tape”.
The highway was amulti-agency approach with the joint consortia of McConnell Dowell and Fulton Hogan, supported by Beca and Tonkin and Taylor.
“Elements of [SH25A] can be repeated like the off-site fabrication, on-site assembly,” McConnell Dowell project director, Hugh Milliken said.
Some elements, however, weren’t replicable because a lot of people in this crew had “literally given up their lives”, Milikin said, working 24/7.
“We made a promise to reopen it by March and we’re very proud to have done better than that…keep it safe, keep it simple, get it done.”
Getting it done in seven months was “an amazing feat,” said Jo Wilton, NZTA’s regional manager of infrastructure delivery for Waikato/Bay of Plenty.
“This project was a priority because…SH25A is the key connector between the east and west coast of the Coromandel Peninsula.”
It would be able to withstand future weather events, she said.
By the numbers : Fast facts about the new bridge
124
It spans 124m and is 15m high with a 3-span composite design. The 138 pre-cast concrete panels used across the bridge were constructed by Fulton Hogan in Ranui as well as 52 pre-cast side barriers fabricated in Tauranga by supplier Preco for the bridge deck.
41
The deepest pile was drilled 41 metres below the surface, double the depth of the other piles (about 22 metres deep). Piles were bored at least 10m into the rock for solid rock foundation.
100
More than 100 people worked on and off site on the bridge. East Bridge Ltd carried out the pre-fabrication of the steel bridge pieces in Hawke’s Bay. The steel beams measure 18, 29, and 30 metres long.
$43m
Construction was estimated to cost approximately $43 million.
491
There were 491 soil nails in the slip face to treat unstable soil slopes, while during the early stages of pre-construction about 75 tonnes of cement was pumped in to retain and stabilise the land.
19
There were 19 different machines used on-site for construction, including broom sweepers, rollers, and some smaller drilling rigs, 100 tonne piling rig, two 100 tonne cranes as well as a 250 tonne crane. Seven excavators, totalling 124 tonnes of earthmoving power, and on-site dump trucks.