A reminder that a stretch of State Highway 2 at Devil’s Elbow north of Napier, will be closed overnight for 5 nights from this Sunday as the rebuild of the cyclone damaged Devil’s Elbow continues.
See this previous media release
The state highway between Tūtira and Aropaoanui Road, north of Napier, will be closed from 9pm to 5am each night between Sunday 3 November and Thursday 7 November. The road will be open as normal from 5am on Friday 8 November.
Next week’s work is weather dependent. The contingency period is Sunday 10 November to Thursday 14 November, 9pm-5am each night.
During daytime hours, the road will be under traffic management through the Devil’s Elbow section.
Transport Rebuild East Coast (TREC) alliance crews, on behalf of NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, will spend the 5 nights undertaking preparation works at Devil’s Corner.
Devil’s Corner, which has been labelled Project I, will be the largest, and last, of the recovery projects in the SH2 Devil’s Elbow section. Cyclone Gabrielle caused a significant underslip that damaged the southbound lane of SH2 at the corner.
TREC Hawke’s Bay project spokesperson Chris Mahoney acknowledges these overnight closures will be frustrating.
“It enables us prepare for work at Project I and ultimately restore two lane access in the area. Thank you to road users for their continued support,” says Mr Mahoney.
“We'll be using the whole width of the single lane road to do the preparation works including widening the single lane, putting down new pavements, drainage, new barriers, and clearing the slopes above the road. This will create more space for the crews and machinery to safely access the worksite as the project progresses.
Two-lane access was temporarily restored over the long Labour weekend to the lower section of the elbow including the elbow itself.
The lower section of Devil’s Elbow is reduced temporarily to a single lane this week while a final layer of asphalt is laid. It’ll be back to two lanes long-term from mid-November.
