A number of options that could potentially save the Bayfair underpass are being discussed after a workshop held by the NZTA.

Members of the community, council members, along with members of the Bayfair Underpass Alliance were presented with a number of different options.

One of the members of the Bayfair Underpass Alliance, Phillip Brown, was at the workshop and says they thought they were going along to have a slightly different conversation than what happened, ‘but that's okay'.

'We thought we were going to discuss detail, but in fact, they sat there and they presented to us the options they had considered for the underpass solution.”

NZTA's senior project delivery manager Andrew Thackwray says 'to establish better communication and more visibility on why and how decisions are being made on the Bay Link project, NZTA has established a working group made up of partners, stakeholders and community representatives”.

'The Transport Agency has a series of workshop sessions planned with the working group. The first workshop, held Thursday, November 14, covered the traffic performance modelling beyond 2040 and the long-list options investigated for pedestrian and cycling access, including separated options, at the State Highway 2 – Maunganui-Given intersection.

'The technical detail was provided to the group on the 15 options investigated. Two of the options were supplied by members of the community.”

Phillip says it took three hours to go through the options, and ‘it because very apparent that very little was suitable – expect for option five in the suitability on the basis of cost'.

'Every option had been costed by BECA. The level of certainty about the costing was unsure, but they had costed them all for comparison.

'They'd also done another comparison of their benefits and how they rated on quite a few different things like security, visualness, and whether they were convenient. They had a big chart there which envisioned them all against each other, but at the end of the day, the only measure is going to be cost and whether it works or not.”

According to Phillip option five is this:

'Where the underpass is now, if you go towards the golf course, just go straight across the road – over by the mini-golf, there's a new road being built. Well, that's going to be the lanes into Tauranga when it's finished, so what it needs is there would be another underpass built underneath that road on that side. We would maintain the existing underpass and to link the two underpasses, there would just be another open underpass.

'But in order to do that, they have to move the embankment to the bridge, off the underpass, off that path of the pedestrian walkway. And they've moved that further back towards Hewlett's road, so it doesn't sit on top of the line of the underpass.

'Having done that, they then have to extend, or put another span into the bridge of about seven to 10 metres – not very far.”

Phillip says they have to retain an underpass, and if it's low cost driven, then option five is the one that works.

'If all things are equal and considering they built a similar underpass on Cobham Drive in Hamilton, for one and a half million dollars, we should be able to do better than what we're going to end up with, but we will end up with a solution which works and which is good for people.”

Option five is not the agreed-upon outcome, says Philip.

'It is what they're going away to investigate further. They haven't agreed to anything.

'They've deliberately un-agreed to it. All they're going to do is go away, and when they say cost it further – they're going to do more analysis on the unknown's in the construction. I mean they've obviously made allowances – like PC sums of certain things. They're going to try and nail those numbers down to real numbers and come back with a final costing.

A visual of the proposed option five. Image: Bayfair Underpass Alliance Facebook page.

Andrew says the Transport Agency is actively investigating two options from the ones discussed at the workshop. They are looking into the feasibility of retaining the existing underpass (option 5), and the overpass at Concord Avenue, in order to make a decision about whether to progress to detailed design.

'Option five is to extend the existing underpass and provide a new bridge span for SH2. To achieve this, the bridge structure, abutments and ground improvements will need to retested and redesigned. Retaining the existing underpass structure also has complexities with ground improvements.

'We are now progressing at speed to confirm the feasibility of the options, especially given the time constraints around the construction programme.

'The available funding for the grade-separated pedestrian/cycling facility at Bayfair is $13 million, the amount approved in November 2018.

'We will continue to work with our partners and the working group with progress over the coming months.

'The project will still include a signalised pedestrian crossing at the Bayfair roundabout, regardless of the outcome of the options,” says Andrew.

'We haven't been promised a date that they will have this by. In another meeting with NZTA a fortnight ago they told us if a decision wasn't made by the middle of December, it would be too late,” says Philip.

'The questions is, if option five is going to be accepted, they've just wasted four months when they could have been building the new underpass.

'The site on Matapihi has remained dormant for the last four months. It could have been built and finished by now, and that's the sad thing.

'It could have been built at a low cost, within budget –because it wouldn't have affected any scheduling, it wouldn't have extended the contract or anything like that,” says Philip.