File image. Photo: Supplied / NZTA
Almost $50 million of repairs to a rutted expressway between Auckland and Hamilton are mired in delays and question marks.
The latest low point in the decade-long saga of the section of State Highway 1 outside Ngāruawāhia, has come with the completion date suddenly shooting out by another 15 months.
Consternation is revealed in newly released project management board minutes from Waka Kotahi.
"BLANK [name redacted] queries how within a month of setting baseline programme, the update moves completion date out by 15 months," August minutes state.
The completion date has blown out from late 2023, to mid-2025.
"No way! No, well I didn't know that," said Waikato district councillor Janet Gibb when told of the delay by RNZ.
"That surprises me... I thought it was rectified and I thought it was close to being finished.
"I just feel really sorry, especially as summer's drawing closer, for the people travelling in cars that are going along and all of a sudden they're held up for a while.
"It can be crawling along."
Waikato district councillor Janet Gibb. Photo: Supplied / Waikato District Council
Locals knew how to get around the back roads but still looked askance at a repair job that was costing so much time and money, Gibb said.
Despite years of stopgap fixes up until 2018 on the section of road, three years of investigations from 2019-22, and now 14 months of repairs since October 2022, major problems persist, while the basic approach and designs of repairs were still in limbo even just a few weeks ago.
That leaves locals and holidayers facing at least another summer of disruption on one of the country's busiest sections of highway, though there will be a short pause in roadworks over the Christmas period itself.
Another district councillor Eugene Patterson said they were already hearing complaints from locals - and this was when most of them thought the project was almost over.
"People get frustrated, thinking that, y'know, it's a reasonably new expressway and to be having to do major works like that," Patterson said.
The council was seeking more information from NZTA including about the detours through the town when the highway was closed.
"How often, how long will they be?" he asked.
The 12km-long stretch that cost $166m for construction alone to build, is now costing at least $46m to repair. This appears to be about 50 percent more than last year.
Fletcher Construction is paying 60 percent of the basic repairs - or $13m - but the bill to NZTA is much higher, at another $33m, because it is opting to also strengthen the road.
The rutted road has defied Waka Kotahi's efforts.
The minutes from November showed the project board was still wondering where the stormwater designs had got to for the parallel $19m of safety upgrades - so motorists can travel at 110km/h on the rest of the 100km-long, $2.1 billion expressway.
Was it "worth trying to include the stormwater works in the pricing given the delays to date?" they asked.
The November minutes showing the project board questioning the worth of adding stormwater works onto the repairs given the delays to date. Photo: Waka Kotahi Transport Agency
As well, they had been debating in August what the best repair approach was to save time, even though this was months into the job.
"An agreed solution and programme, along with more resources from the contractor, are expected to see work accelerated this summer," the transport agency said in October.
Yet a month later, overnight roadworks once again had to be postponed "due to resource constraints".
Once the Ngāruawāhia highway surface started failing, the agency adopted a harder, much more costly surface called Hi-lab for other, later expressway sections.
Ngāruawāhia is not getting Hi-lab, but instead so-called "deep-lift" asphalt that Waka Kotahi said should last 30-40 years.
"I mean, the locals around here know the land and there's a lot of local farmers who work on the swamp land. They know what the swamp land does," said Gibb.
"And I believe a lot of local farmers said at the time, 'This isn't gonna work'. But of course, no one listened to them ... It's a shame."
Patterson said he had heard that, too.
"They felt as though they were ignored. It's probably got some of the deepest peat areas... Maybe there wasn't enough thought put into that."
Roadworkers had been suffering from motorists venting their frustration.
"The people on the ground are there in all types of weather and don't deserve to be abused," Waka Kotahi said in October. This had eased off recently.
Managing up to 25,000 vehicles a day was a major challenge, the agency said on Monday.
"Work could be done quicker with a north or south detour but the old route isn't suitable for heavy vehicles who make up close to 20 percent of traffic."
The agency blamed the mounting delays on the scale of the job, and shortage of resources.
"Initially further deterioration of the pavement since 2019, when the first section was repaired, has meant the quantity of full structural repairs has increased," it told RNZ on Monday.
"Repairs cannot be undertaken during the winter period... The increase in the quantity of repairs has meant they cannot all be completed within the previous expected completion date."
Meanwhile, resourcing "challenges" had beset Fletcher and its subsidiary Higgins, as well as the designers, held up in trying to finalise drawings and schedules of quantities.
The contractor was going to bring in crews and materials from outside the region.
"There is a big push to progress this over the upcoming construction season," the agency said in October.
On top of the $46m of repairs, almost $19m is being spent to make safety improvements.
Higgins has had a bad year, owing in part to "poor execution on a range of small construction projects" and taking a $17m hit from Cyclone Gabrielle, Fletcher's annual report said.
The August minutes recorded a manager asking how Fletcher "will ensure that Higgins perform and deliver the above within cost and programme".
Someone else responded that Fletcher "are unlikely to look elsewhere for asphalt works but could consider other options for pavement and earthworks".
Fletcher said a way of repairing the road agreed in 2019 required ideal summer conditions to work.
It had taken time to come up with a revised design to minimise risks from the weather and high groundwater, said the company's general manager of major projects, Mike Elliot, in a statement on Tuesday.
"We understand the Waikato expressway is an important route for travellers and we are working collaboratively with all parties to complete this work to the required standards as soon as possible."
Engineers WSP have been approached for comment.
