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A proposal to alleviate traffic from the notorious Hill Street intersection is on firmer ground after NZTA and Auckland Transport (AT) announced plans to start designing the Matakana Link Road next year.
The announcement was made during a public meeting hosted by Auckland Mayor Len Brown in Warkworth on September 29 (see story p3).
The road would run from Matakana Road to State Highway One, north of the Hudson Road intersection.
AT chief strategy officer Peter Clark wouldn’t commit to a construction date, but said it would make sense to build the link road while the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway was being built. This could divert trucks involved in the construction away from the Hill Street intersection. A large number of trucks are expected to travel between the Omaha Valley Quarry and the motorway construction site.
“NZTA and AT are working on options for construction and funding, but there is no AT funding for it in the current Long Term Plan (2015-2025),” Mr Clark said. “Only once these options are worked through will we be able to be more definite on a construction date.”
NZTA and AT also committed to designing improvements to the Hill Street intersection next year, but it will likely be nearly a decade before the work is completed.
NZTA transport planner Sebastian Reed said the agency would start developing plans for the intersection next year, after Council’s growth strategy for Warkworth had been finalised.
A design to upgrade the Hill Street intersection was completed in 2009 but the work was never carried out. Mr Reed said a new approach was needed.
“A lot has changed since then. Warkworth is forecast to grow a lot faster than originally anticipated and the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway and the Matakana Link Road will impact on traffic flows, affecting the design,” he said.
Construction at the intersection wouldn’t start until after the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway was built, which would likely be at least 2021. Work on the intersection would then take about two years to complete and cost about $15 million.
The preferred tenderer for the motorway would be decided mid next year with the five-year construction starting late next year.
Retired engineer Roger Williams said traffic through Hill Street would only increase in the future due to development north and south of Warkworth and growth in Snells Beach and Matakana.
Many Warkworth residents left the meeting frustrated by the lack of progress.
“They’ve been saying ‘next year’ for the past 10 years. Nothing’s getting done,” Dennis Brown said.
