Traffic diverted to killer road while life-saving bypass gets fresh seal

New seal will be laid this week on the Mangatawhiri bypass, a key section of the main road between Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula, just 16 months after it opened.

Eastbound traffic, including trucks carrying freight to the Bay of Plenty or southern destinations down State Highway 2, will be relegated to the winding old road through Mangatawhiri village once the work starts on Wednesday, weather permitting.

The Transport Agency expects traffic delays of up to 15 minutes but says sealing contractors should take no longer than four days to cover the 7km bypass. It is promising motorists that speed restrictions on the new seal will be lifted at least two days before the Easter break, when up to 25,000 vehicles a day are expected through.

When Transport Minister Steven Joyce opened the bypass in December 2008, he welcomed the elimination of what was considered the most dangerous stretch of the notorious 34km Maramarua Highway between Pokeno and the eastern turnoff to Thames at Mangatarata.

Transport safety officials said the stretch it replaced had claimed nine lives in the previous five years, out of 28 fatalities along the 34km route.

Local volunteer fire brigade chief Don Shanks said yesterday that there had been no serious crashes on the new road and he was unaware of any deterioration of its surface, even though the police consistently issued plenty of speeding tickets along it.

A Transport Agency spokeswoman in Hamilton denied there were any problems with the quality of the $46 million bypass construction, saying it was standard practice to apply a "second coat" seal to new roads a year or two after building them.

She said of the sealing project: "It's business as usual."