State Highway 1 (SH1) between Wairakei Roundabout to Broadlands Interchange, Taupō, was closed from 5am Monday 11 November until Wednesday 4 December 2024, 2 days ahead of schedule.
All north and south bound vehicles were detoured 24/7.
The work done included 2.5km of road reconstruction, some road widening, adjusting wire rope barriers, cleaning the shoulders, repairing signs and adding in new line marking.
Now it is completed, we will need to come back for the final sealing which is expected to be done at nights at a date to be confirmed.
We originally planned to do this work later in the T2W schedule, but as there were a number of large events planned in November and December in Taupō, including the Taupō Cycle Challenge, and Ironman 70.3 World Championship, we rescheduled this earlier. Changing the sequence of our work on SH1 meant we avoided causing considerable disruption to competitors and spectators involved in and travelling to these events:
We had originally planned on a second SH1 closure between Ātiamuri to Wairakei to happen before this Christmas, but the work on that section will now take place in spring 2025. As a result we could fit in the work on the East Taupō arterial section of SH1 before Christmas.
We’ve enjoyed working closely with Taupō District Council (TDC) to understand the best timing for closing the various sections and believe together we came up with a solution that was best for the wider Taupō community. TDC were able to incorporate road works they needed to do into our closure, and they helped shape our traffic management to minimise disruption as much as possible.
The detour route for all vehicles was: Southbound traffic on SH1 will turn left onto SH5, right onto Ohaaki Road, right onto Broadlands Road, and left back onto SH1. Northbound traffic followed the same detour in reverse. The detour added an extra 45.5 km and approx. 32 min to journeys.
