Kiwi road maintenance crisis as resurfacing costs increase 50% in six years

Road resurfacing costs have dramatically increased. Photo / 123rf

Road rehabilitation costs have increased dramatically since 2018, with one form of road repair increasing by $200,000 a kilometre since 2018 to $612,379 this year.

The figures, released to the Herald under the Official Information Act lay bare how costly road maintenance has become with drainage renewal costs increasing by more than 250% from $174 per treated metre in 2018 to $611 this year.

The figures note drainage renewal figures for this year are “artificially inflated as invoices have been received, but the data for the completed work is yet to be recorded by contractors”.

Costs for sealed road resurfacing, another form of road repair, have remained relatively stable and have increased by less than the CPI, increasing from $59,651 per km in 2018 to $66,356 per km this year.

Pavement resurfacing includes chipsealing and thin asphalt. Pavement rehabilitation, the more expensive of the two, includes granular overlay and structural asphalt construction.

The figures were provided to Transport Minister Simeon Brown in a briefing this April.

Brown said the Government “inherited a state highway network which is need of significant repair with over 62,000 potholes needing to be repaired on state highways around New Zealand in 2023″.

“This was the highest number in 10 years,” Brown said.

He said the Government’s $3.9b “Pothole Prevention Activity Classes” in the most recent Government Policy Statement on Land Transport provided ring fenced funding for “resealing, rehabilitation, and drainage maintenance works on our roading network”.

Brown said this funding came with more stringent targets for NZTA-Waka Kotahi for repair times. He said NZTA had agreed with roading contractors that “95% of potholes on high volume, national, and arterial state highways [are] to be repaired within 24 hours of identification”.

“Meanwhile, and 85% of potholes on regional, primary collector, and secondary collector state highways to be repaired within 24 hours of identification,” Brown said.

He said that long-term, NZTA would target “maintenance outcomes of 2% rehabilitation of the state highway network each year, and long-term maintenance outcomes of 9% resurfacing of the state highway network”.

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.