Where's Taupo's second bridge?

Traffic turning out of Norman Smith St onto Wairakei Dr, Taupo. Photo/Laurilee McMichael

Calls are growing for the Taupō District Council to revive plans for a second bridge over the Waikato River to relieve traffic congestion at the Norman Smith St and Wairakei Dr intersection.

At peak times the wait to turn right out of Norman Smith St can be up to 20 minutes, with commuters complaining it grows longer every day.

The Taupō town centre is also under pressure, especially along Spa Rd which has a 5pm peak traffic jam stretching up to and past Taupō-nui-a-Tia College as vehicles heading over the river struggle to get through the roundabout at Tongariro St.

Taupō's steady expansion to the north and west has contributed to the increasing number of vehicles using Control Gates Bridge each day. Council figures show that in the last 10 years, 700 new homes have been built on the western side of the Waikato River, including Kinloch.

Former district councillor Christine McElwee says councillors on the Taupō District Council in the 2000s knew that the East Taupō Arterial highway, which opened in October 2010, was never going to permanently solve the problems of increasing traffic congestion from Taupo's north and west, although it might provide temporary relief.

She says the plan was to accurately measure traffic flows after the the bypass had been in operation for a few years and at that stage the best guess was that a second river crossing would be built after 2022.

The council commissioned Transportation Planning and Traffic Engineering consultants Gabites Porter in 2009 to undertake some Taupo town centre traffic modelling which included modelling what traffic flows would look like around the town with or without various changes to the roading network. It clearly showed that traffic in the town centre and Norman Smith St/Wairakei Dr would become increasingly congested in coming years.

The Taupo Urban Commercial and Industrial Structure Plan, adopted in January 2011, also indicated that the proposed second bridge project would take place some time after 2022.

Mrs McElwee says public unease at the council's suggestion of moving its offices to the Tongariro North Domain, which was included in the structure plan, meant that other aspects of the plan, such as the second bridge, got overlooked.

Ratepayers were also uneasy about the council's level of debt, which by 2014 was $168 million due to the cost of constructing the bypass and the wastewater treatment plant and saw the council cut back on jobs and spending.

Cr Rosie Harvey, who lives on the western side of the river, says she's seen the traffic jam grow and heard increasing frustration from commuters about the wait. She said the council was aware of the problem and so the draft annual plan proposed an investigation of various options to relieve the congestion.

Cr Harvey said she doubted NZTA would be in a position to help with the cost of a second bridge as it had already contributed to the East Taupo Arterial bypass and there were other bottlenecks of higher priority throughout the country. That meant any solution would have to be a local one.

"I'm certainly pushing for other options that could be workable. There could be all sorts of ways of moving the traffic around."

In the longer term, a second bridge was still desirable, Cr Harvey said.

"Everyone realises that it has to be done, but it's just a matter of when, and when the funds become available."