Green light for Tauranga Northern Link, more SH2 safety improvements

The Tauranga Northern Link has been taken off the chopping block, with the NZ Transport Agency confirming it will build the highway – albeit in a different form – after months of speculation.

The new state highway between Tauriko and Te Puna will have two lanes rather than the four initially proposed, but the agency was looking at adding extra lanes for buses and other high-occupancy vehicles.

Critics have welcomed the decision but also expressed frustration and noted the continued lack of a timeline for when construction of the highway, and other State Highway 2 improvements, would start.

The northern link was one of four major roading projects between Tauranga and Waihi that have been in limbo for months as the agency re-evaluated to see how they fitted with the coalition Government’s transport priorities.

Te outcomes of those re-evaluations were announced yesterday.

Agency spokesman Brett Gliddon said it would speed up and extend its plan for safety improvements on SH2 between Waihi and Te Puna, one of New Zealand’s deadliest stretches of highway.

Previously-announced funding of $101 million was ringfenced for improvements between Waihī and Ōmokoroa over the next five years, including 26 intersection upgrades, wider centrelines, flexible median barriers and protections against other hazards.

The agency wanted to roll those out faster and start designing and finding funding for similar improvements, to be constructed simultaneously, for the stretch between Ōmokoroa and Te Puna.

The agency would also progress with a major Omokoroa Rd intersection upgrade. What form that would take was still to be decided but Gliddon said a roundabout would make sense.

“We want to get on to this as quickly as we can.”

Gliddon said the long-planned Katikati bypass, however, would not happen any time soon.

The agency would keep the land designations but he said the project was not as high a priority as others.

Stuart Crosby, chairman of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s transport committee, said the Katikati community would be disappointed to see the bypass put on the backburner.

Katch Katikati promotions manager Jacqui Knight said the lack of a bypass was stifling the development of the town.

“It doesn’t have to be a four-lane highway, there just needs to be an alternative route.”

Gliddon said the agency hoped to have more news about the timelines and funding for projects in December, after it completed the re-evaluations of several other projects around New Zealand and weighed the priorities.

He said $216m of previously ringfenced funding for the northern link was still secure, but more was needed before construction could start.

National MPs have claimed the Government had cancelled the Tauranga Northern Link.

Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller was unrepentant yesterday, saying the tender for his government’s proposed northern link – which would have seen construction starting last month – had been cancelled, criticising the new plan as “half-baked”.

Reactions

Phil Twyford, Transport Minister, Labour

“NZTA is prioritising urgent safety improvements to these roads to make them more forgiving of human error. Drivers will always make mistakes and the government’s job is to stop those mistakes turning into tragedies.

Responding to Muller he said: “If the TNL was so desperately needed five years ago, why didn’t Todd Muller’s government and former transport minister Simon Bridges build it?”

Matthew Farrell, Fix the Bloody Road campaign spokesman

“Overall, I think we have got to be happy that a road that had its tender process cancelled is now going to be built, albeit in a new form.

While there may be some disappointment it’s not a four-lane road, you have to see it as a win that this project still has more than $200 million in ring-fenced funding and will be going ahead, unlike some other projects elsewhere in New Zealand.”