A section of State Highway 1 has been reduced to 30km/h due to road conditions, and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency says it won’t be fully restored until next summer.
The 1 km stretch of road is bumpy, full of holes and the seal is bleeding.
Waka Kotahi network manager for Southland Jacob Manson said the site was last shut down again in 2016.
“The hot weather of recent times has softened the bitumen in the sealing layers, causing this section of the road to bleed.
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“Hot temperatures soften the road surface and can cause bitumen and other damage to the surface to ‘bleed out’.
“We have introduced the temporary speed limit to limit traffic damage during the bleeding. Cooler temperatures will improve surface stability.”
He said further resealing was not an option for this site due to surfacing issues.
“We program maintenance to make the surface safe and maintain the surface. Once these works are completed, the speed limit will be lifted.
“For this location, the bleed is expected to have a permanent residual effect, so it is likely that the site will remain under a temporary speed limit of 70 km/h to ensure that the road is at a safe and appropriate speed until the permanent repair is completed. is completed.
“This is programmed for the 2023/24 construction season (October-March 2023/24) with a high priority for construction timing.”
Rachael Kelly/Stuff
The speed limit has been lowered to 30 km/h to reduce damage to the road.
The site could not be resurfaced this summer.
“The Waka Kotahi highway resealing program is densely packed during the spring and summer with sites requiring renewal and resealing/repairs.
“It is very difficult to just add an extra kilometer of highway, given the cooling of the highway at the end of the summer, which means that the effectiveness of the resealing decreases by autumn.
“That’s why it’s best to manage the site in winter and use it for seal hunting the following summer season.”
Rachael Kelly/Stuff
The speed limit has been reduced to 18 mph on a section of State Highway 1 north of Gore.
Each location required traffic management and an organizing team around it to ensure local people and freight users who were most affected were informed in advance and crews lined up.
Sometimes specific machines had to be booked well in advance, there were line marking crews tracking each reclosing location and materials had to be delivered at the right time,” he said.
A site north of this part of the road was resealed for the second time in December iafter year after the first track failed to meet the ”slipperiness requirements”.
Data from Waka Kotahi shows that 1,700 vehicles used the road every day at Arthurton, just north of Pukerau, and 14% of those were trucks.