With SH6 re-opening this morning north of Haast in South Westland, more safety work will continue in the lead-in to Christmas, says NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). This will involve some daytime delays for road users.

• Currently, the highway is closing overnight from 9pm through to 7 am the next day while NZTA gains more assurance of slope stability.

Although rockfall safety-critical work has been completed to enable the route to open after nearly a fortnight’s closure, more rockfall reduction work needs to occur to provide more resilience around the clock in future wet weather or land movements, says Mark Pinner, System Manager for NZTA in the Central Region of the South Island/Te Wai Pounamu.

This section of highway was closed after record rainfall caused flooding, slips and rockfall at a number of places, including above the road at the site of 2012’s Epitaph Slip, (north of Haast, south of Lake Moeraki and Knights Point).

Two afternoons, five hour closures for several weeks

“The only way to do this more significant blasting work safely is to have slightly longer closures two afternoons a week, Tuesday and Thursday, midday to 5 pm through until the Christmas shut-down,” says Mr Pinner.

"We advise drivers to wait on either side of the closure points while the blasting occurs; at Haast (approximately 30 minutes south) or at Franz or Fox Glaciers (around 1 hour north), so that they are able to easily access refreshments and public toilet facilities.”

Other less intrusive stops

Crews will also be ensuring the new rock bund at the southern end of the rockfall site remains intact and the traffic lanes are clear, at the same time trucks will continue emptying rockfall from the inside of the traffic lane. This work may cause short Stop/Go delays across the day of up to 15 minutes.

Sensors and signs

The other key change south of Knights Point at the slip and rockfall site, is the installation of sensors. These movement sensors in the ground are linked to traffic lights. If any ground movement is detected by the sensors, the lights will automatically warn drivers to stop as a hazard is present.

“While we are feeling a lot more confident that the rockfall site has now been sluiced, immediately unstable rocks airbagged or scaled off the face and bigger rock features risk reduced with explosives, we can’t fully remove risk in these areas. That is why we have installed the sensors and the new traffic lights.”

Outside of these current closures, and any future weather events which could trigger rockfall, SH6 will be open for all traffic.

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