Golden Bay has busy summer as Takaka Hill repairs progress

Sunday, 19 May 2019

Repairs to 10 sites on Takaka Hill within the single lane areas managed with traffic signals have gone well over the 2018/19 summer peak road repair period, NZTA says.

Major roadworks on Takaka Hill will continue into next year, but the works are not deterring visitors with tourist operators reporting a busy summer in the bay.

It has been 15 months since sections the only road link between Nelson and Golden Bay were washed out on Takaka Hill after ex-tropical cyclone Gita hit the South Island.

The resulting slips made the road impassable, leaving 6000 Golden Bay residents and tourists temporarily isolated.

One year on, Golden Bay Promotions Association chairwoman Cheryl Elsey said a very busy - albeit dry - summer in Golden Bay had put many businesses in a much healthier position.

'A lot of people have parked that particular event and you do have to move on at some point . They're quite happy that things are back on track and there's still a great number of visitors coming to Golden Bay.'

Damage caused by ex-Cyclone Gita on the Takaka Hill road.

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'As far as the road goes, the progress has been positive - the last couple of times I've been over I've seen a significant improvement. A couple of the not-so-major bends look like they've come a long way and there seems to be a reasonably short wait time at the moment because there's less traffic.'

Golden Bay's largest transport operator, Sollys, said last year it suffered a $600,000 loss in relation to the Takaka Hill road closure and a 70 per cent increase in costs.

Merv Solly of Sollys Transport in Takaka says delays of up to 30 minutes on Takaka Hill is still frustrating.

Owner Merv Solly said while the situation had improved he remained frustrated by the delays caused by 'an unnecessarily long repair process'.

'It's bloody slow - it's also really costly because you waste the better part of half an hour every day using up drivers' hours on the side of the road waiting.'

At Tata Beach, Golden Bay Kayaks' Lisa Savage the business had a 'phenomenal summer'.

'I still really feel that NZTA don't actually appreciate how many people come over the hill. The flow of traffic up until Easter was really quite incredible.

'Maybe the whole Gita thing has spurred a lot of the domestic travellers to come over – it certainly hasn't put them off.'

The map of the section of SH60 under traffic light control. Red dots are the five badly damaged sites with design work underway.

NZTA's average annual daily traffic figures (AADT) has shown a gradual rise in numbers of vehicles using Takaka Hill up from 1303 a day in 2014 to 1561 in 2016 and 1541 in 2017. In 2018 those figures decreased slightly to 1432 vehicles a day.

Savage hoped that any future earthworks reflected the amount of traffic that there now was on the Takaka Hill.

'[NZTA] have tried very hard - it would be good to have more signs on the hill out for slow vehicles to pull over because that's been a frustration for a lot of the common users of the hill.'

The next phase of construction on the hill was scheduled to begin next spring, aiming to be completed in the first half of 2020, NZTA says.

NZ Transport Agency project manager Reece Foster said the Tasman Journeys team overseeing the work on the hill had made good progress in repairing 10 key sites.

Repairs to the 10 sites within the single lane areas managed with traffic signals had gone well over the 2018/19 summer peak road repair period.

Retaining wall structures and ground stabilisation will be completed over the next two months.

Foster said design work for the remaining five more significantly damaged sites was now underway by engineering firm Beca.

'Our geotechnical team has been hard at work over the summer drilling boreholes and digging test pits to take rock and soil samples. This will ensure the designs for these major repairs will be robust and based on the local conditions at each site. In turn, this will help increase the resilience of this winding hill road in future heavy rain events.'

Foster said construction was scheduled to begin this coming spring aiming to be completed in the first half of 2020.

This meant that hill drivers have another year of traffic lights and short delays before the two-lane highway is restored.