NZTA’s Upgrade to Improve Dome Valley Safety
NZTA’s Upgrade to Improve Dome Valley
Safety
The NZ Transport Agency has
started work to improve a high crash section of State
Highway 1 in the Dome Valley between Warkworth and
Wellsford.
The $493,000 project just north of
Falls Bridge includes safety improvements to the camber and
alignment of two curves, widening the highway’s shoulders,
a drainage upgrade and new signage.
The NZTA’s
State Highways Manager for Auckland and Northland, Tommy
Parker, says this section of SH1 has been the site of 4
fatal and 18 injury crashes in the past 10 years.
“We are committed to continuing our programme of
works to improve driving on this difficult section of
highway,” Mr Parker says. “While we have settled on
our preferred route for a new highway between Warkworth and
Puhoi, investigations continue on the best options to
improve the Auckland/Northland connection further north.
Until those investigations are complete, it is critical that
Dome Valley upgrades like this one at Falls Bridge
continue.”
The improvements are the latest in
a series of safety measures that the NZTA – together with
the Police, ACC and local Government, - have undertaken in
recent years that have had a significant impact on reducing
crashes in the Dome Valley.
The NZTA says
the Falls Bridge improvements will cause delays and drivers
should allow more time for their journeys because stop/go
traffic management is operating through the work site. The
work is taking place during the day – Monday to Friday -
although the final seal could be laid at night. There is
no work at the weekend. The upgrade is expected to be
completed by the end of May.
“We will do
everything we can to minimise disruptions, but we do ask
drivers to be patient for their own safety and the safety or
our contractors at the work site,” Mr Parker says.
ENDS