The North Canterbury Transport Infrastructure Recovery (NCTIR) team will have three five-day closures of State Highway 1 between Peketa and Goose Bay, between now and the end of this year in order to ensure the highway can open safely at the end of this year.
The full five-day closure last week enabled much more progress than the crews normally achieve on the four days open, three days fully closed regime. Crews are also aware that some critical work needs to be completed to make the route more resilient and they need as many hours available as they can manage between now and the end of 2017.
The purpose of these longer closures is to facilitate and accelerate progress with rock bolting, mesh placement, earthworks, wall construction, hydroseeding on multiple sites. Crews will also make use of the reduced traffic flows to advance road works at Oaro and in the Hundalees.
Crews will also be removing further unstable materials through these extended five-day work weeks within the Peketa-Goose Bay open/closed schedule. The first week’s extended closed schedule is detailed below:
First five-day work week, highway closed, from Monday 25 September:
The dates for the two other extended closures are currently being scheduled, but likely to be Monday 16 October - Friday 20 October and Monday 6 November - Friday 10 November.
Key dates have been avoided for these closures – for example: 16 September Kaikoura Hop, 7 October Seafest, 17 November Canterbury Anniversary, 23 October Labour Day, 30 October Marlborough Anniversary.
“The NCTIR crews understand that these extended closures are not ideal for local residents but are determined to have the highway completed for the end of this year, for everyone’s benefit,” says Tresca Forrester, NCTIR Journey Manager.
