Follow on Twitter
Email A Friend
Road works planned for State Highway 29 on Saturday, June 23, will finish early to minimise disruption to supporters travelling to the All Blacks match in Hamilton or Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic’s game in Tauranga.
The New Zealand Transport Agency has amended its Saturday work schedule on SH29 at Ruahihi Bluffs to ensure the road will reopen at 3pm.
The section of highway at Ruahihi Bluffs will reopen at 3pm on Saturday.
The section of highway at Ruahihi Bluffs will be closed for most of the weekend while rocks and trees overhanging part of the highway are removed.
Originally, NZTA planned to reopen the road each day at 5pm, however it has adjusted Saturday’s reopening time to 3pm minimise disruption to sports fans.
Acting Bay of Plenty state highways manager Andrew Scott says the NZTA is keen to do all it can to ensure sports fans get to their games on time, while also allowing the urgent safety work to go ahead.
“We are aware that on Saturday, many people from the Bay will want to travel to the All Blacks game in Hamilton.
“Equally, people from the Waikato will also want to travel to Tauranga for the Magic’s game on the same day.
“That’s why we’re keen to ensure fans know about the closure and allow extra time for their journey so they can use the alternative routes if they want to arrive early.”
The weekend daytime closures are now Saturday 7.30am – 3pm and Sunday 7.30am – 5pm.
There are also intermittent closures of an hour each on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week at 10am, 12pm and 2pm to finish off the works, which have been timed away from the start and end of the school day.
Andrew says the timing of the safety works has been carefully considered in relation to traffic volumes, which are considerably higher during the weekdays - and events are also taken into consideration.
“Unfortunately on a high use highway like this, there’s never an ideal time to carry out maintenance work - and from a safety perspective, we need to get this work done sooner rather than later.”
When the road is closed traffic will be diverted through Poripori Road, Crawford Road, Wairoa Road and back to SH2 west of Bethlehem.
The detour will add half an hour to travel time and is not suitable for large traffic volumes because of the choke point created by a single lane bridge on Crawford Road.
Tweet
Posted on 21-06-2012 12:02 | By Kaimai
Good memory whatsinaname - I was only just around in the mid 1960’s - maybe another temporary bridge at Mclaren Falls would be good for weekends like this. This morning they had taken a barrier down and replaced it with cones - odds are there will be a traffic accident on Mclaren Falls this Saturday, at the bridge or the hairpin by the carpark. Who’s fault will that be?