Work due on Mangatawhiri bypass next year

Firefighters are relieved that money has finally been granted to straighten a stretch of the notorious Maramarua highway, but say far more is needed to stop carnage on the road.

Government funding agency Land Transport New Zealand yesterday announced $45.9 million for a 7.2km bypass of Mangatawhiri on State Highway 2 south of Auckland.

This is considered the deadliest stretch of a 34km corridor dubbed the "unforgiving highway" between Pokeno and the turnoff to Thames at Mangatarata, the main route between Auckland and Coromandel or the Bay of Plenty.

Of 23 fatal crashes on the corridor between 2000 and 2004, eight were on the tortuous section through Mangatawhiri, the village known for its "castle cafe".

Four more people have been killed along the highway this year, boosting the toll since the start of 2000 to between 31 and 40.

The lower figure is that of road-builder Transit New Zealand, and the higher estimate that of the police.

Transit has a long-term goal of building a four-lane expressway over the full route, costing more than $330 million, but only the Mangatawhiri bypass and another at Maramarua are listed in its latest 10-year state highway forecast.

The agency previously hoped to start building Mangatawhiri this year, but Land Transport NZ queried a cost escalation from an estimate a year ago of $29 million.

Transit said yesterday, after receiving funding approval, that it expected to award a construction contract by December for construction to start early next year.

Waikato regional manager Chris Allen said tenders would be called next week for the project, which should be complete by mid-2009.

Mangatangi Volunteer Fire Brigade chief Don Shanks, who has spent more than 30 years cutting dead or injured people from car wrecks along the highway, said the bypass would be a sorely needed first step.

"I would hope that once they start on it, they will hurry on and do the rest," he said.

Waikato mayors and councillors were dismayed when an indicated construction start for a second bypass, of Maramarua further east, was put back three years to 2013 in a draft Transit highway plan issued in January.

Local pressure prompted Transit to bring the date for starting the second bypass to 2011 in the final version of its 10-year forecast, but that is still a year later than indicated in its 2004-05 highway plan.

Mr Allen said yesterday that the agency had begun a planning process for the 4km Maramarua link and would hold a public route designation hearing in September.

He said one reason for the funding delay for the Mangatawhiri bypass was a request by Land Transport NZ for clarity on whether it would conform to a long-term strategy for a four-lane expressway all the way from Pokeno to the Thames turnoff.

Only 3.2km of the bypass will have four lanes, but Mr Allen said the other 4km of two-lane highway would be along a safer alignment to that of the existing road which had a "bad combination of vertical and horizontal curves".