Parapara Road to get slice of $20 million safety package

The Parapara Rd between Whanganui and Raetihi will get some safety improvements. Photo/ Bevan Conley

The Parapara Road between Whanganui and Raetihi will benefit from a $20 million road safety funding package announced by Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter.

The stretch of State Highway 4 was one of 11 targeted highways that did not have the highest levels of traffic, but were full of risky sections such as sharp corners and narrow stretches, Genter said.

Rumble strips, safety barriers and wider shoulders will be installed as part of the next stage in the Safety Boost Programme which covers 670km across 11 rural state highways.

"The Boost Programme includes simple safety upgrades that can be installed quickly over the summer period, such as rumble strips, roadside safety barriers in high-risk locations, shoulder widening, and improved signage," Genter said.

Rumble strips can reduce fatal run-off-road crashes by up to 42 per cent, while shoulder widening at high risk sites can reduce serious crashes by up to 35 per cent.

"All drivers make mistakes from time to time. Safety improvements like these stop simple mistakes turning into tragedies," Genter said.

Work on the upgrades started this week and aim to be finished by July.

Genter said these improvements would be additional to the 870km of upgrades in the Government's $1.4 billion Safe Network Programme for high-volume state highways, which hopes to save 160 lives and serious injuries by 2021.

The road toll was 379 in 2018, the highest since 2009 and much higher than in 2013, when it was 253.

Last April, Genter said the Government would look at adopting a target of zero deaths and serious injuries on New Zealand roads.

She said at the time that the target would be "audacious", but all road deaths and serious injuries were avoidable.

The Government has not formally adopted a zero target, and it will be part of a consultation process on road safety that will take place in March and April.

Genter, who has said it would take decades to see a substantial reduction in road deaths and serious injuries, has verbally clashed with the National Party over the best way to improve road safety.

Last election National promised eight roading projects - including Mill Rd in South Auckland, Auckland's east-west link, and a Napier-Hastings four-lane expressway - saying they are crucial to save lives and improve regional economic development.

The party has been pushing for the projects ever since, including delivering eight petitions - signed by more than 16,000 people supporting the highway projects - to the transport and infrastructure select committee.

This summer the party has put up hoardings to coincide with busy holiday traffic on stretches of highway between Wellsford and Te Hana (Northland), Otaki and Levin, in Te Puna (Bay of Plenty), and in parts of Canterbury.

The series of hoardings near Wellsford has three messages: "We know this traffic is a real pain"; "National was building a 4-lane highway here"; "but Labour cancelled it".

The Government has called the hoardings "cynical politics" that show support for "a handful of gold-plated expressways".

The upgrades include:

West Coast:
* SH6 and SH67 between Murchison and Westport
* SH7 from Hanmer Springs

Gisborne and Hawke's Bay:
* SH2 from Wairoa to Gisborne
* SH35 from Gisborne to Tolaga Bay
* SH2 from Gisborne to Matawai
* SH5 and SH2 to Te Haroto

Manawatu-Wanganui:
* SH56 from Makerua to Palmerston North
* SH57 from SH3 to SH56
* SH3 from Palmerston North to Ashhurst
* SH4 from Whanganui to Raetihi
* SH54 from SH3 to Feilding