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Engineers have begun design and investigation work on two more stretches of the notorious Maramarua highway through the northern Waikato, as a first-stage $46 million bypass nears completion further west.
The Government's newly established Transport Agency has awarded a $3.4 million design contract for a 6km bypass of the Maramarua village at the eastern end of the troubled highway, before the Thames turnoff, and for investigation of a realignment of a 4km stretch near Kopuku.
Although construction is unlikely to start before 2011, the two-pronged design contract has been let to Opus International Consultants as the Government agency prepares to complete in October a 7.2km bypass of Mangatawhiri village between Pokeno and Maramarua.
The two new sections are expected to cost anything between $116 million and $180 million, according to the most recent material on the agency's website, based on last year's national state highways forecast.
Agency regional manager Kaye Clark says design work has already begun on the Maramarua Deviation and an investigation for a preferred route for the adjoining Kopuku realignment has also started.
The Kopuku stretch will link the two main bypasses along SH2, and the route investigation work follows an agreement by the Auckland Regional Transport Committee to contribute $1.5 million of the region's allocation of Government funds.
Even though most of the road is in the Waikato, officials reckon 60 per cent of vehicles involved in crashes along it belong to Aucklanders.
The three projects will produce a relatively straight line for more than 15km, replacing a winding route which claimed almost 40 lives in road smashes over five years to 2005, but it will remain a mainly two-lane highway albeit with more passing lanes.
Ms Clark said that although the new section of road would offer better safety and passing opportunities, it would reflect the agency's national strategy of developing SH1 via Hamilton and SH29 over the Kaimai Range as the preferred traffic route between Auckland and Tauranga.
