Dome Valley SH1 Upgrade Works, Drive past

Описание: Significant work is being done on the section of New Zealand State Highway 1 between Warkworth to Wellsford, north of Auckland.

Costing 67 million dollars I think this is far better value for money than full motorway alignments. 7 people were killed on this stretch of road in the last 5 years, and 30 further injured. Many from cars crossing the line and having head on collisions.

If the NZTA were to halt any further motorway alignment extensions and instead direct money to roll out these kind of upgrades across much more of the network, far more lives would be saved for the limited amount of money we have available. And the funding would be spread out more, around the country, instead of around a few major cities. The new motorway alignments have become more and more expensive and provide less and less value as the places that actually needed motorways have been built out. An example lately was the Otaki to north of Levin section that had a BCR of less than 0.5 before its cost doubled in a blowout.

The upgrades in the dome valley include median rope barriers, shoulder widening, right turn bays and U turn facilities. It is a challenging and expensive area to do any road building or upgrades, and on more straightforward section of highway this would be a much cheaper exercise.

The completed sections felt much much safer to drive on, it really was a huge improvement.

More info here:

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/sh1...

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/sh1...

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/sh1...

Check out some of the images, the works are very substantial.