Lengthy Waikanae River bridge clip-on work causes community frustration

The Waikanae River bridge is restricted to northbound traffic only during construction of a clip-on shared path. Photo / David Haxton

Work to install a clip-on shared path across the Waikanae River bridge started this week, with detours affecting motorists and businesses.

The work, expected to take until at least May, requires all southbound traffic to be detoured through Waikanae to Paraparaumu via the Kāpiti Expressway, except for emergency vehicles, school buses and a small number of businesses and residents immediately south of the bridge.

Juli Hunter Eco Friendly Style, a clothing alterations business about 50 metres north of the bridge, has lost clients because of the detour.

Owner Juli Hunter said the roadworks had been hugely disruptive as her workroom was directly on the path of the roadworks.

“The detour and delays are putting people off from driving through this way.”

She had seen a 45 per cent drop in new jobs coming into her workshop last week, compared with the week before.

“We are very concerned about the upcoming months and if we will be able to survive.”

Despite those concerns, she was “so grateful” to the community, who had been supporting her business online.

“We just hope it will be enough to see our business through the next four to six months.”

Hunter isn’t the only one being affected by the roadworks.

A clip-on walking and cycling path is being built on the western side of the Waikanae River bridge on the old state highway. Photo / David Haxton

The detour has meant commuters are getting stuck at the traffic lights leading onto the expressway in Waikanae, and there are buildups of peak-time traffic on the offramp at Paraparaumu.

Some Waikanae residents have organised a protest at the worksite tonight to voice their concerns.

Emma Speight, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi’s director of regional relationships, said experience showed it could not use stop/go signs on both sides of the bridge.

Previous works had shown that resulted in long queues at peak times, causing delays in both directions. That created safety risks, including vehicles queuing across the railway crossing on Elizabeth St.

“The one-way detour is expected to provide consistent journey times in both directions. We believe this is the best-balanced solution, though we acknowledge the trade-off is that southbound journeys are longer.”

Speight said the agency and its contractors would continue to monitor the impact on traffic. It was focusing on managing traffic lights to try to prevent queues.

Further traffic management changes would be considered if that did not work.

“We are working hard to reduce the queues by constantly making changes in response to traffic flows.”