Hamilton section of Waikato Expressway open to traffic

The rubber has hit the tarmac on the final section of the Waikato Expressway, the Hamilton section is now open to the public.

The 22 km stretch of SH1 is the final stretch of the highway project, resulting in: a 70mph stretch from Hampton Downs to south of Cambridgepast Hamilton.

A official blessing and ribbon cutting on Tuesday Many wondered when they would be able to drive on the new road – which is planned to reduce travel time between Auckland and South Waikato and remove through traffic from the Hamilton network.

It opened to traffic just before 10 p.m. Thursday, Waka Kotahi confirmed.

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The transport company never publicly announces the date of a road opening, Waka Kotahi’s Regional Infrastructure Manager Jo Wilton said.

“It takes some coordination of traffic management to then lift all the different areas and get them open. So we don’t give time because we essentially don’t want a queue of parked traffic until we open the gate.”

The Hamilton section of the highway is expected to cut 35 minutes of a journey between Auckland and Tīrau.

The $837 million project, which began with a sod in March 2016takes State Highway 1 east of Hamilton and connects the Ngāruawāhia section in the north with the Cambridge section at Tamahere.

“After decades of planning and six years of construction, it’s fantastic to see traffic using the Hamilton section,” Wilton said.

“We are delighted that road users now have a safe corridor all the way from Auckland to Cambridge. The Hamilton section will reduce traffic congestion, improve safety, reduce travel times and boost economic growth in the Waikato and beyond.

Wilton said the link roads at Resolution Drive and Ruakura Road will remain under traffic management and temporary speed limits until work is completed.

There are now five interchanges providing new ways for motorists to get in and out of the city with Southern at Tamahere, Ruakaura, Greenhill, Resolution Dr and Northern at Lake Road.

Hamilton City Council director of the city’s transportation unit Gordon Naidoo said: people will notice some changes in traffic volumes and patterns in the citywith new options to enter or completely bypass the city.

“As a result, drivers, pedestrians and people on bicycles and scooters must remain alert and careful when using our roads and paths – especially near the new interchanges to the city,” Naidoo said.

People can also expect traffic management at the Ruakura and Resolution Drive connections in the coming weeks as final work on the berms is completed.

The project was originally supposed to be completed in 2020, but in 2019 the NZ Transport Agency reduced the delay to “contractor resourcing levels in a construction market and unusual weather of the summer 2016/17”.

The project was then affected, like most of the work in New Zealand, with: Covid-19 lockdowns that halted work on the highway during peak operations.

Police have said there will be no speed tolerance on the road – including the route of 78 km with a limit of 110 km/h.

There will be police on the highway, Waikato District manager Jeff Penno has said, but it won’t be overt and by the time you notice it will probably be too late.

Penno said they have thousands of miles of highway to cover in the Waikato District, so do all of their roadside checks on a risk basis.

Technically, the Hamilton section has 16 bridges and a large underpass – 15 of which are concrete and one steel. The tallest is Kay Rd, which is 18.8 meters above the ground, and the longest is Mangaonua with a length of 150 meters.

There were 110,000 tons of asphalt used for the final surface of the road. Most of it came from a temporary asphalt plant on site that could produce 140 tons per hour. The factory’s estimated cost was $4 million, and it was set up on leased land near the Ruakura Interchange.

7,500 people were inducted to the site during construction, including subcontractors but excluding visitors. In the first years, up to 600 people worked on the section. The contract was awarded in November 2015 to CityEdge Alliance consisting of Fletcher Construction, Higgins, Beca, Coffey and Waka Kotahi, with Hick Bros an earthworks sub-alliance.