SH6/SH8B Cromwell intersection improvements

Funding has been provided for this and 12 other highway projects nationwide through this investment:

New Zealand Upgrade Programme – Transport

The purpose of these projects is to address key challenges facing our regional highway networks. These include safety, resilience and traffic congestion problems, accessibility and travel time reliability. These projects also help support regional economic development.

Road safety is a high priority for the government and a major focus for Waka Kotahi. Everyone should be able to get to where they’re going safely - whether they’re driving, walking, cycling, or riding a motor bike.

This project is part of our investment in safer infrastructure to support New Zealand’s Road to Zero strategy, that sets us on a path to achieve Vision Zero, an Aotearoa New Zealand where no one is killed or seriously injured on our roads. Steady progress towards this target would mean approximately 750 fewer people are killed and 5,600 less seriously injured on our roads over the next 10 years.

Road to Zero – NZ’s road safety strategy

Cromwell is one of the fastest growing areas in Central Otago, attracting more visitors and more people wanting to live and work in the town. This is seeing increasing residential and commercial developments to cater for this demand. All these factors are placing greater pressure on the already busy SH6-SH8B intersection - a critical link on the Cromwell to Wanaka and Queenstown highway corridor.

This project involves the design and construction of a new single-lane roundabout to replace the existing intersection. The upgraded intersection forms part of wider safety improvements planned for the SH6 Cromwell-Wanaka-Queenstown highway corridor. A separate, but complementary project - a single lane fully developer funded roundabout at the intersection of SH8B and Barry Avenue in Cromwell. This will provide safe access to an adjoining large residential development. This is a developer funded roundabout.

When it opens in the second half of 2022 the SH6-SH8B single lane roundabout can be easily increased to two lanes in the future to accommodate future traffic growth. Once completed the new roundabout will improve safety at an intersection where serious injury crashes are on the rise. Between 2010 and 2019 there have been 23 crashes at this intersection with one crash resulting in two fatalities.

• A modern 20m-radius single-lane roundabout to reduce fatal and serious injury crashes at the Cromwell SH6/SH8B intersection.
• The design has the flexibility to accommodate another lane when traffic demand reaches a level if at some stage in the future this is warranted.
• Improved and safer traffic flows through this intersection.
• Better connections to the highway and local road networks in this area.
• A second single lane roundabout, incorporating a pedestrian underpass, at the SH8B/Barry Avenue intersection. This roundabout will be fully funded by the developer of the planned residential development of the adjacent Wooing Tree Estate.
• Relocation of utility services.

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Artist impression for communications purposes only.