Truckies cool on Transit NZ's u-turn

Drivers travelling between Tauranga and Auckland will be encouraged to take the longer route skirting Hamilton in future - and truckies are not impressed.

Transit New Zealand has decided that over the next 20 years it will concentrate on making State Highways 1 and 29 the main route between Auckland and Tauranga.

It means SH2 through Katikati, currently used as the main route to Auckland, and even SH27 through Matamata, will be relegated to tourism and commuter roads to Coromandel and east Waikato.

Transit's latest thinking is that over the next two decades the $1 billion, four-lane Waikato Expressway will be completed, with bypasses at Huntly, Ngaruawahia, Hamilton and Cambridge. And it will be easier to travel SH1, turning on to SH29 for Tauranga at Piarere just south of Lake Karapiro.

Nearly two years ago Transit NZ signalled that SH27 through Matamata should be the main route between Auckland and Tauranga.

Chris Allen, Transit NZ regional manager, told the Bay Land Transport Committee that his national board had decided to make SH1 and SH29 over the Kaimai Ranges as the main route between Auckland and Tauranga, including looking at four-laning the road over the Kaimais.

Derek Dumbar of the Road Transport Association said that heavy transport operators would not consider a longer route.

The extra 28km of travelling on SH1 and SH29 would cost heavy transport operators another $125 for a return trip from the Mount to Pokeno, or the bottom of the Bombays, he said.

Mr Dumbar said: "The Transit NZ strategy is fatally flawed - the [SH 1/29] route does not stack up economically."

The No 2 region of the Road Transport Association - representing Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Thames Valley, and Poverty Bay - unanimously voted against the Transit NZ strategy at its annual meeting a week ago.

The association said Transit NZ must upgrade the other routes to Tauranga in tandem with the four-lane SH1 from Auckland to Piarere.

Mr Allen said Karangahake Gorge was a choke point on SH2 and it would not be four-laned.

However, over the next decade investigations and design work would still take place for the Tauranga northern arterial to Te Puna, a roundabout at the Omokoroa intersection with SH2 and a bypass at Katikati.

- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES