No stop for motorists as officials hit go on Piarere intersection

Friday, 26 January 2024

The plan to improve one of Waikato’s notorious intersections will be done without disrupting motorists.

Construction of a roundabout at the intersection of SH1 and SH29 is officially underway and it’s being done all off-road.

The call to improve the area where those travelling from Tauranga, Cambridge and Tīrau meet has been long and loud. It was answered last year with confirmation of a 60 metre two-laned roundabout.

Minister of Transport Simeon Brown broke soil at the site on Thursday morning for the project, which is expected to take up to two years to complete.

The roundabout will be built where officials are standing to allow traffic to continue using the existing intersection.

“We have heard from the local community that safety on this intersection is a large concern. This strategic improvement will increase safety and reduce the risk of serious crashes. With two lanes, it will also improve the traffic flow and increase efficiency.”

The roundabout will be future-proofed with pedestrian and cycle pathways, also designed to connect with a future motorway from Cambridge to Piarere.

There will be a closed stub on the roundabout that can be opened when the expressway is complete.

Brown is expected to announce more on the National Roads of Significance as part of the government’s 100-day plan due in early March.

NZTA’s Jo Wilton said the construction site of the roundabout will need to be raised by four metres.

He’s already outlined 13 major roads, with Cambridge to Piarere one of them. He also said connecting Hamilton to Tauranga with a four-lane expressway is a possibility.

“We're going to be open to using a range of funding and financing tools to be able to deliver this infrastructure.

“It's really unfortunate that in the last six years, this infrastructure was stopped. We need to get it back underway so we can get our country back on track.”

The NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi regional manager infrastructure delivery for Waikato and Bay of Plenty, Jo Wilton, said it was a key project to start because of the safety issues.

The politicians’ shiney shovels await a sod turning. The new roundabout is scheduled to take two years.

Wilton said they had looked at building the roundabout where the current intersection is, but the amount of traffic using it each day - around 30,000 vehicles - made it unfeasible to disrupt.

“About 16% of those are heavy commercial vehicles. If you start trying to build in the middle, you actually start disrupting that flow of traffic significantly because you're having to build things.”

Another consideration is keeping the contractors safe working in live lanes with heavy traffic.

“So we went, let's build it offline and then connect the roads. In that way our contractors are off the road, and it allows the current intersection to operate in its current state until we finish the project.”

She also said that two years of disruption at the intersection would be pretty untenable for commuters.

Downer has the $43.5 million construction contract to build the intersection.

Currently the site of the yet-to-be built roundabout is two metres lower than the existing intersection.

It means contractors will have to bring in around 225,000 cubic metres of infill to lift it up four metres before tapering it down to the existing lanes.

“This is to accommodate the approaches into the roundabout and allow it to drain correctly and make sure we protect our pavement because the worst thing for pavement is water getting in.”

Wilton said while the roundabout is expected to be finished in 2026, there could be a lot of variables in that time due to weather with earthworks season being restricted to the dry months.