Important Otago highway project opened on hot Dunedin day

Important Otago highway project opened on hot Dunedin day
Five years of safety and highway improvement work costing $45 million on Dunedin’s main State Highway south of the city was celebrated today (25 November) by Minister of Transport Hon Simon Bridges and parties involved in the project.

The first stage of the NZ Transport Agency’s Caversham Valley Safety Improvements Project opened in 2012, providing a four lane, median-divided route from Andersons Bay Road to Barnes Drive, improving traffic flow. 

Today’s stage two milestone(external link) increases safety on SH1 from Barnes Drive up to Caversham Valley and Lookout Point. The new Lookout Point bridge allows motorists and pedestrians to avoid heavy traffic when crossing the highway corridor and enables all turns onto and off the highway to be made via left turn movements. 

“People who travel across the city between the airport or Mosgiel to the central city, Port Chalmers or further north up State Highway 1 will notice the improvement in their journeys,” said Jim Harland, the Transport Agency’s Southern Regional Director. 

The cycling and walking path parallel to the highway had also been extended, linking it to other Dunedin cycleways. Local contractors and suppliers had been employed by the Transport Agency as much as possible, he said, bringing direct benefits back into the city’s economy.

Colonies of Peripatus or velvet worm found along the margins of the new road works for this project were relocated to new areas nearby. This has ensured these unusual creatures thought to have been in existence for around 500 million years, continue to have an ongoing role in the biodiversity of Caversham Valley.

Minister Bridges congratulated all parties involved in the project for their hard work, dedication and innovative solutions.(external link)

Minister of Transport, Hon Simon Bridges, cuts the ribbon on the new Lookout Point Bridge, the last part of the Caversham Valley Safety Improvements Project, watched on by Mayor of Dunedin Dave Cull and Edward Ellison, Kai Tahu Ki Otago, and aided by the efforts of pupils of Carisbrook School.

• Around 25,000 vehicles a day use State Highway 1 between Lookout Point and Andersons Bay Road.
• The project provides all road users with a safer and more predictable journey time through Dunedin along SH1.
• The highway is now more safely aligned, and lighting, signage and stormwater management upgraded, the latter in conjunction with the Dunedin City Council, providing good value for ratepayers and motorists.
• Improved safety on this highway corridor has enabled the speed limit to be raised from 50kph to 60kph.
• The new two-lane bridge, designed to be less vulnerable in an earthquake, carries local road traffic over SH1 at Lookout Point, eliminating two high crash risk intersections that connected these local roads to the highway.
• The bridge itself is 35 metres wide, has 24 18-metre beams supporting it and 98 tonnes of reinforcing steel for earthquake resilience.
• November 2015 Project update here.(external link)
• Read the media release from the www.beehive.govt.nz(external link)

Some of the Downer construction team who worked on this project spanning five years.