The New Zealand Transport Agency says around three quarters of through traffic between the Domain Road Interchange and Paengaroa roundabout is now using the new Tauranga Eastern Link in its first week of operation.

NZTA communications and stakeholder manager Claire Pedersen-Croll says more vehicles are using the TEL Toll Road, with initial expectations suggesting 6000 vehicles per day would use the $455 million route, which opened to the public on August 3.

Around three quarters of through traffic between the Domain Road Interchange and Paengaroa roundabout used the new TEL in its first week of operation. Photo: Colin Lunt.

'We've had an average of 6547 vehicles per day on the Tauranga Eastern Link Toll Road, which is in line with expectations,” explains Claire.

'Friday had the most traffic, with 6963 vehicles.”

Claire adds an estimated 18-19,000 vehicles per day were using the Te Puke Highway to get from Tauranga to Te Puke prior to the new road opening.

'But this will have dropped to 12-13,000 vehicles per day,” she says.

'Western Bay of Plenty District Council is going to do an updated traffic count so we can confirm the volumes.”

However, NZTA senior project manager Wayne Troughton says the Transport Agency doesn't have recent vehicle counts on the Te Puke corridor.

'There have also been vehicles simply driving the TEL in both directions just to see it,” he says, 'and we may have vehicles swapping from State Highway 36 onto the TEL. So it is not a straight number swap.

'We do have detection of vehicles with Bluetooth, which comes in at about 15-20 per cent of vehicles using the route. This gives us three quarters of the traffic number.”

The 21km, four-lane route is one of seven Roads of National Significance identified by the government as being crucial to building New Zealand's economy.

It includes seven bridges, the country's biggest roundabout, a new 6.8km cycleway, and one of the largest public art pieces currently on display in New Zealand – a 130m long pa sculpture.

Despite numbers of the TEL Toll Road reaching expectations, NZTA says the new multi-million dollar highway is still not the busiest stretch.

'The busiest stretch of highway in Tauranga is State Highway 2 along Hewletts Road,” says Wayne, 'with about 27,000 vehicles per day, specifically between Totara Street and the Sulphur Point/City Centre interchange (over the Harbour Bridge).”