Safe passage plan for blackspot

By KEVIN TAYLOR

Road crews are about to start work on eliminating one of the nation's worst crash blackspots - State Highway 1 between Mercer and Long Swamp, near Meremere.

Between 1995 and last September, 18 people died on the 12km stretch of road, including carloads of three and four people in head-on smashes with trucks in 1998.

The work, to start in the next few weeks, is an important step in the long-term plan for a $433 million four-lane expressway from Auckland to Cambridge.

Transit hopes to complete 44km of the Waikato Expressway by 2005, although the whole project may take 20 years.

It aims to boost the economy by cutting travel times between Auckland and Hamilton. Just as importantly, it will help slash the number of deaths on a lethal stretch of road.

Improving roads is seen as one of the best ways to nearly halve the annual road toll to 295 by 2010.

But it is expensive - it costs up to $350 million a year. An alternative plan for stronger law enforcement would cost $28 million a year.

The Mercer to Long Swamp section will cost $56 million, and is expected to be completed in late 2003 or early 2004.

It poses tricky problems with soft soil and the need to shift a railway line.

A 160m-long bridge is also to be built, spanning railway lines and the Whangamarino River.

Transit regional highways engineer Ian Cox hopes the bridge will be finished by October.

Then the main roadbuilding will start.

When the expressway is completed, the stretch between Mercer and Cambridge will have two lanes in each direction, parted by a wide grass median or crash barriers.

Between Meremere and Taupiri it will pass 77 white crosses and one pale green headstone, flower-adorned reminders of road smashes.

On the section of road between Mercer and Cambridge, 83 people died and 219 were seriously injured between 1995 and last September.

Transit estimates that reducing the chance of drivers colliding head on will save at least six lives a year and avoid 16 serious injuries.

This is based on a 40 per cent reduction in the number of crashes.

The Mercer to Long Swamp section is a high priority because of increasing traffic congestion.



Mr Cox said the vehicle count was now up to 18,000 vehicles a day, and could reach 20,000 this year.

Work should also start this year on another section of the expressway - a 10km stretch from Rangiriri to south of Ohinewai.

Upgrading this will cost between $20 million and $26 million.

Waikato police strategic traffic manager, Inspector Leo Tooman, said the trouble with the Mercer/ Long Swamp blackspot was that it was at a point where drivers left a modern motorway system and entered a "goat track."

"That piece of road has passed its used-by date," he said.

Mr Tooman welcomed the start of work on the expressway.

This type of road was more forgiving of driver mistakes than two-lane roads where the only thing separating vehicles was white paint.

Not only would the expressway save lives, it would cut 10 minutes off the travel time between Hamilton and Mercer.

Mr Cox said completing 44km of the highway would change Waikato's traffic patterns.

People who were choosing other routes to their destinations because of congestion would start using the main road again.

Increased use of State Highway 1 could accelerate the start of work on the other stages of the project.

And Mr Cox is optimistic the expressway will save even more lives than Transit's conservative estimates.

"One of the things we will do is eliminate head-ons," he said.

"It will cut down on the frustration."

Herald Online feature: Cutting the road toll

Do you have a suggestion for cutting the road toll?

E-mail Scott MacLeod. Please supply your name and address.

Cutting the toll: readers' views
Are you part of the dying race?

Take an intersection safety test

LTSA: Road toll update

Massey University: Effectiveness of safety advertising