Te Upoko o Te Ika a Māui – Greater Wellington 2022 update

Investment in Greater Wellington during the 2021–24 NLTP is focused on enabling more people to use sustainable travel options like walking, cycling and public transport – and on improving the safety, reliability and resilience of the region’s road network.

Completed or underway

• Te Aranui o Te Rangihaeata Transmission Gully Motorway, one of the largest transport infrastructure projects in New Zealand, opened in March 2022 after six years and more than 12 million work hours to build.
• Significant progress was made on the Peka Peka to Ōtaki Expressway, the new stretch of SH1 that will connect with the recently constructed MacKays to Peka Peka Expressway.
• The RiverLink Programme, a partnership between Waka Kotahi, Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council, Taranaki Whānui and Ngāti Toa, lodged combined consent applications in 2021, and an Environment Court hearing was held early 2022
• Good progress was made on key walking and cycling projects connecting Wellington with the Hutt Valley, which make up Te Ara Tupua
  • Construction continued on the Pito-One (Petone) to Melling section, which is expected to open in 2023.
  • The Ngā Ūranga ki Pito-One (Ngauranga to Petone) the Te Ara Tupua Alliance was established as the delivery team for this phase.
  • The project won the IAP2 Australasia Core Values Award for Indigenous Engagement for the partnership between Waka Kotahi and iwi mana whenua (Taranaki Whānui and Ngāti Toa).
  • Hutt City Council’s Tupua Horo Nuku Eastern Bays Shared Path was integrated with the Te Ara Tupua Alliance as a coastal shared path project with similar complexities.

Better travel options

Wellington already has the highest proportion of people who use public transport in the country, with 30% of journeys made by public transport modes and walking or cycling. Despite this, Wellington is the fourth biggest contributor to transport carbon emissions, so we need a significant shift in the way people travel, by making it easier to use low-emissions travel options.

Our investment during the next three years will support an integrated and well-designed land transport system to help people use different ways to move around for many of their journeys. This investment will help to reduce regional transport emissions.

Improving safety

Safety in Wellington continues to be a focus, with deaths and serious injuries having increased at a higher rate than population growth. People most at-risk are cyclists and pedestrians in the urban areas, and those travelling on high-risk motorcycle routes and on high-risk rural roads.

The SH58 and SH2 Melling transport improvements will help improve safety on existing roads, especially at high-risk intersections and on high-risk urban and rural roads, while major projects, including Transmission Gully and Peka Peka to Ōtaki (PP2Ō), will improve safety through the provision of new infrastructure.

Completed or underway

• A new alliance was set up to deliver maintenance and operations activities across Greater Wellington’s highway corridors for 11 years. The Wellington Transport Alliance has three partners – Waka Kotahi, Fulton Hogan and WSP – working as one team to deliver a safer, more efficient transport system for the region.
• We’ve delivered a number of repairs, safety improvements and upgrades to shared walking and cycling paths across the region – most significantly on SH1 at Ngauranga Gorge but also:
  • SH1 - Paekākāriki near Fisherman’s Table;
  • SH2 - South side of Silverstream intersection, south of Moonshine Bridge, connecting paths beside Moonshine Road exit onto highway; and
  • SH58 - Paremata Road north of the small Paremata roundabout.
• Work continued to make State Highway 58 safer for everyone, with road strengthening and a retaining wall on the Mount Cecil Road to Harris Road section, and planning work underway for the final stage of improvements, including new roundabouts at two key intersections.
• Public feedback was received on possible speed limit changes to make the SH2 Ngāūranga to Featherston road safer. Feasibility design studies are being completed for safety improvements along this corridor with construction funding yet to be allocated. Some early safety improvements being rolled out, include closing the unsafe intersection of SH2 and Cornish Street in Petone. Cornish Street was successfully closed in April 2022 following consultation with Hutt City Council and local businesses.  
• A construction contract was awarded, and early works began, on safety improvements on SH2 between Masterton and Carterton. Median barriers and new roundabouts at three intersections will improve safety. There was also consultation on speed limit reviews along SH 2 between Masterton and Featherston.
• Regular overnight shutdowns on SH2 Remutaka Hill Road have enabled annual maintenance and slip prevention work to be completed.
• SH 1 Ōtaki to Levin safety improvements were completed at Kuku anda speed review is underway to ensure everyone who uses this stretch of road can get where they’re going safely.
• During the 2021-22 summer construction season, we chip sealed 34.9 lane kilometres of State highway; asphalted 24.9 land kilometres and re-laid 7.07 lane kilometres.

Improving freight connections

The Wellington region is constrained geographically and is vulnerable to earthquakes, severe storms, landslides and sea level rise. It is therefore critical we ensure people and goods have reliable and efficient access to key destinations in the region, such as the Wellington port, ferry terminals, airport and hospitals.

During the next three years, we’ll look to continue improving the resilience of two main corridors, SH1 and SH2 to help protect this constrained access.

Major roading infrastructure projects such as the Transmission Gully motorway, Peka Peka to Ōtaki Expressway and safety improvements to SH58 will provide more resilient, reliable and safer routes in and out of Wellington.

Wellington is also a vital gateway for freight and travel between the North and South Islands and we’re working with our partners to improve the resilience of this inter-island connection.

Let’s Get Wellington Moving

During this NLTP period, the programme continues to focus on the short-term ‘early delivery’ activities.

Completed and underway

• Safer journeys are on the horizon with construction of a new signal-controlled walking and cycling crossing on SH 1 Cobham Drive.
• After community input into the design, the programme’s central city walking improvements project is now underway, to make the central city safer and more accessible.
• The business cases for major projects such as mass rapid transit and strategic highway improvements continue to progress.

Funding overview

Overview map

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