KEY POINTS:
The ageing Kopu Bridge is to be replaced with a $32 million substitute as a matter of national priority.
Holidaymakers to the Coromandel Peninsula this summer have been stuck in queues up to 10km long on State Highway 25. More than 2000 east-bound cars backed up to cross the bottleneck for the Christmas break and today could be worse, as Thames race day traffic combines with families returning from holiday.
Transport Minister Steven Joyce said the one-way bridge was "ludicrous" and promised the thousands of motorists crossing the 82-year-old span today that the problem would be "sorted" soon.
The new Government has also identified completion of the $1 billion Waikato Expressway as a priority. And a decision is imminent on the 4.7km Waterview connection and tunnels in West Auckland - described by officials as the country's biggest-ever roading infrastructure project.
Work on replacing Kopu Bridge had not been scheduled to begin till the middle of 2011. But Joyce said he would meet New Zealand Transport Agency officials next month to confirm an earlier start date.
He would not be drawn on details of the revised construction timeline.
"Personally, I think it is ludicrous that this has not been sorted in the last nine years. It's been a problem piece of road for a long, long, long time. Every year these issues arise."
"Hopefully we'll be in a position to announce some good news for the people who get frustrated on that bridge every summer."
Asked whether that meant construction on the new bridge would begin before 2011, Joyce said: "That's certainly what we are looking at".
The new Government promised during the election campaign that it would bring forward $800 million of infrastructure spending, much of that on roading and broadband, as part of an urgent economic stimulus package.
The news is welcome for the thousands of motorists forced to cross the single-lane bridge near Thames.
Six months ago the Herald on Sunday revealed the Kopu Bridge has not had a structural engineering check since a 2001 report which said it could collapse in an earthquake.
The Transit study said "seismic deficiencies" would be likely to cause the structure to suffer significant damage or "sudden collapse" even in a moderate quake.
Even though the 81-year-old structure failed to meet modern safety standards, Transit said it was monitored by a "robust inspection strategy".
But it confirmed to the Herald on Sunday there had been no structural testing of the bridge or its piles since the critical 2001 report. A February inspection report said the abutment bearings were corroded, the timber handrails were in poor condition, and there was deck cracking and steel corrosion throughout the superstructure.
