SH2 works re-prioritised

The influential regional transport plan is calling for government investment on SH2 safety works: Photo supplied.

The influential Regional Land Transport Committee has placed works on State Highway 2 at the top of the priorities to go to the government for approval.

It's a turn-around from the regional committee's draft plan, which sparked a public outcry because it placed SH2 works a long way down the list of priorities.

The strong public response in the submissions process saw committee members change their minds.

'We went out and asked for peoples view on those. We got a fantastic feedback across the whole Bay of Plenty,” says regional land transport committee chairman Stuart Crosby.

There was a lot of emphasis on the SH2 works between Te Puna and the Katikati bypass.

Priorities have also been changed with the new government's draft land transport policy statement increasing the emphasis on safety.

This in turn affected the advice the Regional Land Transport committee receives from its advisors; the transport engineers and managers from the councils across the Bay of Plenty and the New Zealand Transport Agency.

The new priorities place a strong focus on SH2 Tauranga and Omokoroa projects.

First priority is Omokoroa to Te Puna.

'They also separated out from that project the interchange to make it a new project which we supported,” says Stuart.

They made the Omokoroa Road/SH2 interchange priority 2, but effectively they will work together.

Third priority is Waihi to Omokora. The Tauriko west network connections are now priority four.

'At the end of the day there's a large number of projects that have priority,” says Stuart.

'They are broken down into an activity class list on a national level. Funding comes indifferent buckets or activity classes; state highway improvements, local road improvements, public transport, and walking and cycling.”

The regional committee also beefed up a lot of the language in the document around growth, and the need to make sure transport systems in the Bay of Plenty match the growth - and that the councils in the bay also invest more heavily in other modes of transport, says Stuart.

The modified document will be presented to the BOP Regional Council transport committee on June 15. When approved by the Regional Council, it then goes to Wellington at the end of June – alongside all the other regional transport plans.

'By August we will know the national plan, so hopefully our plan influences the national plan to get us the resources required to make progress on these projects,” says Stuart.

'The other complication is we will have to go through this exercise again in 2019. The Government is bringing out another policy statement two, which will have the more focus on rail and coastal shipping.”

He says it's a good idea to have a substantial review of the document and priorities in 2019.

'Councils will have firmed up more projects, particularly in areas of infrastructure and walking and cycling.”

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2 comments

It Did'nt

Posted on 28-05-2018 13:12 | By Merlin

It didn't need a rocket scientist to know the priorities were wrong.


what does this mean?

Posted on 28-05-2018 15:40 | By dave4u

repair the old road or go ahead with the 4 lane highway?


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