What are you doing now?
Recovery work is ongoing across affected regions. Waka Kotahi is seeking Board approval for the business cases. Following approval the next steps are confirming funding and prioritising the investment.
Will damaged roads be rebuilt in the same location?
In some cases, access may be via a detour while damage is assessed, and an appropriate repair solution agreed. Where this is not possible, Waka Kotahi will work with councils and their communities to discuss future access and options for resilient and sustainable state highway links.
In many cases Waka Kotahi will use short term solutions to restore vital access, before looking at the medium and long-term solutions. As we have seen on SH23 in Raglan, shorter-term options may include detours through private property, or we may use Bailey Bridges such as those installed in multiple locations over the past six months.
Given the scale of the damage to many of our state highways Waka Kotahi recognises that serious consideration will need to be given to the form of future connections. This work takes time due to its scale and complexity, but we will work with central government and our local partners to carry this out as quickly as possible.
How much will the rebuild cost?
The scale of damage to the transport network following these weather events is unlike anything seen previously. The cost of the rebuild will be significantly more than any of our previous rebuild projects. The exact cost will depend on how funding is provided to Waka Kotahi, and we will be able to confirm more detail once this is confirmed.
What is Waka Kotahi doing in response to climate change?
As evidenced by Cyclone Gabrielle, climate change is one of the biggest challenges that the land transport system faces right now. It creates significant challenges for our road, rail, and public transport networks and weather-related hazards like landslips and flooding cause damage and disruption to our communities.
New Zealand’s topography is challenging with many of our state highways built on a substratum of clay, in coastal areas or alongside waterways. This makes our roading network vulnerable to slips and extreme weather events especially with the effects of climate change in recent years. (NB 453 km or state highway network is along the coast)
Waka Kotahi acknowledges its role in planning and developing a climate resilient transport network to keep everyone moving and minimise the risk of climate impacts. We are already adapting the way we do things to try and minimise future disruptions.
Following on from the events of 2023 we are implementing a series of changes to place further priority on our ability to respond to resilience events and to make longer term improvements that ensure we maintain levels of service. For example, improving the resilience of a wider corridor through increased culvert sizes to withstand impact of future rainfall events.
Last year we published Tiro Rangi – our climate adaptation plan which is our long-term plan for adapting the land transport system to our changing climate. The plan outlines 21 priority high level actions for implementation over the coming two years to 2024, and a long-term 2050 goal.
Tiro Rangi – our climate adaptation plan 2022–2024
Who funds to rebuild our damaged roads?
Waka Kotahi makes allowance within the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF) to fund emergency works to keep communities connected and people and goods moving.
In the latest 2021-24 National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) $240m was allocated for emergency works. The government has now topped up that Emergency Works fund with an extra $525m.
The government has also provided $567m for recovery works across the affected regions, and created a Transport Resilience Fund in the 2023 Budget. This fund has allowed 94 proactive resilience projects to commence during the 2023/24 financial year.
The increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events is creating pressure on the National Land Transport Fund with the level of emergency works funding continuing to rise.
Before this latest event, emergency works had already significantly exceeded the allocation in the current financial year.
When the allocation is too low, we first use additional revenue, including Crown funding, if available, funding from areas where there is lower than forecast spend, short-term debt and/or by deferring works.
From the National Land Transport Fund, we fund 100% of the repairs to the state highway network and a significant portion of the cost for local roads.
Will this event have any effect on the delivery of other Waka Kotahi projects?
With the greater number of events in recent months, we may have to reprioritise funding for some existing programmes of work as the National Land Transport Fund is under significant pressure with lower than forecast revenue and higher costs because of inflation, lower public transport revenue and existing emergency works. It is not possible to determine what, if any works, may need to be deferred or cancelled until the full impact of the flooding is known.
With the extremely wet spring, recent events and many of our maintenance crews having to juggle resources across emergency works and renewals, there may be an impact on our ability to complete forecast maintenance programme for 2022/23 in some regions. This may result in further issues this winter if we are unable to complete the full renewal programme.
Road closures, such as SH25A Kōpū-Hikuai and SH1 Mangamuka, result in additional traffic volumes on other routes (eg SH25 and SH2 in Coromandel, SH10 in Northland). This can hasten deterioration on these roads, as well as local road detours, which may lead to subsequent reactive maintenance and additional traffic disruption.
