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Hill road replacement issue revives

December 9, 2024 December 2024 No Comments

Remutaka Road Action Group wants the region’s southern lifeline put on central government’s agenda and has identified three new routes as options to replace the current hill road.

Basic New Zealand Transport Agency data show 9,200 vehicles use the hill road each day _ that’s 64,500+ a week, or 3.35 million a year _ surely a road deserving of a “regional significance” designation by the current system.

Other data shows in the past nine years the hill road has seen 382 crashes, including five fatal smashes.

The Action Group is asking a simple question: what to do with a problem like the hill road? – and offering three alternative lower-level routes – including one tunnel, for NZTA to investigate.  

What will be the public response, as this is not the first time well-intentioned locals have raised the issue. 

One such campaigner was former National Party MP for Wairarapa John Hayes, who in his maiden speech to the House in 2006 laid out his goals. 

Among the top three was a road tunnel connection to Wellington _ something he saw as a major upgrade of the transport linkages.

Nine years later as he finished his stint as an MP, a reporter asked what had happened to the road tunnel proposal?

His response: some 85 percent of Wairarapa constituents who had visited his office were united: no way did they want an upgrade for the “Hill Road” _ it would see “an invasion of Wellingtonians.”

So Remutaka Hill Road has been a defensive bastion, keeping the barbarians at bay!

Given the revival of plans for a second road link, is the protective barrier about to be breached, with the outlay of a mere $1 billion or so? 

That has been put up as the back-of-the-envelope cost for a new link to cater for the vehicles travelling the hill road.

Two of the road action group’s proposals require cut-through options (cuttings) according to  spokesperson Simon Casey, a former ACT Party candidate.

The third alternative route would include a 1.3 kilometre-long tunnel and clearly cost more. It would also have potential limits for the transit of dangerous/hazardous goods. The tunnel option has the steepest price tag _ an estimated $1.4 billion, according to the group.

“We’re not putting any of those options as being a favoured one. We’re just saying here’s what we think is possible, but all the options are better than what we’ve got now,” Casey told local media after an initial meeting with Transport Minister Simeon Brown. 

One of the key drivers for the group was developing critical transport and access resilience for the region. “If we had a slip on that road, anything like what happened in the Coromandel (during Cyclone Gabrielle) and it was out for months, that would decimate the Wairarapa.” 

In a Letter to the Editor of the Times Age newspaper, local Roger Boulter raised the rail tunnel option. 

“The elephant in the room of the ‘new Remutakas road’ idea is the ignored rail tunnel. And the ‘bold new’ road idea is actually a tired old one which pops up every so often and then goes quiet again as impractical,” he wrote.

“With the government keen on announcing new roads, this latest Wairarapa proposal seems nothing more than ‘don’t miss us out’ posturing…. 

“The rail tunnel is vastly underused, and more passenger trains through it would address many of the issues raised by Casey.” 

Boulter didn’t raise the dual rail-road tunnel option.

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