Roger Brady: NZTA spokesperson on the planned closure of State Highway 1 for two months

There's disappointment among some as State Highway 1 in the Central North Island will be closed for repairs for two months.

The Desert Road is closing between Turangi and Waiouru from January 6 until the end of February.

The detour will add half an hour and an extra 50 kilometres to journeys.

NZTA's Roger Brady says the approach is well-planned - and the closure lets them squeeze in four months' worth of work into two.

"So instead of having a long, drawn-out, ongoing inconvenience - yes, it's going to be inconvenient, but there'll be a limit to the inconvenience to two months." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Togither do for thee Ellen.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Now I've got bad news for you if you are
planning on driving State Highway One down the middle of
the North Island this summer. N ZTA is closing the
Desert Road for two months from January sixth to late
February between Too Rangy and Wyou the detour that's the
part that will be closing. Then the detour is likely
to add more than half an hour to the trip.
Roger Brady is from n z TA.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hi, Roger, Heather, Hi, good eating to you.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Is there no way around this? You couldn't have done
it any.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Other time, Heather. We couldn't have done any other time.
Real it'scuse the weather in that part of the country
that that's the only time of the year we can
actually fix that road.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
And do you have to fix the road like this extensively?
Because this is quite big, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Well, this is this is actually a step change in
the way that we're fixing the road. We're going to
do four years of work in essence in a couple
of months here, so instead of having long drawn out
ongoing inconvenience, Yes, it's going to be inconvenience, but we're
going to limit that inconvenience to two months and then
we're going to get out of that and have tople
free moltoring on that stretch of road for years to come.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, when's the busiest time on that bit of road?

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Okay? There is Generally it's busier before Christmas and then
the first week of the new year. So we've skipped
that period and we've got a very short window of
weather opportunity. But we have pushed it back as far
as we can into January to start to ensure we
can finish the scope for working time.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Okay. And I've already had ticks to Roger saying, if
you're saying it's going to be two months, it's going
to be five what are the chances of a blowout?

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Well, look, we've been working on this project north of
toker Row, and also we've had our targets so far
in terms of the program, So I'm confident two months
is two months and weather permitting a course, if we
I'm fortunate enough to have a cyclone, perhaps not, but
we confident have.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
It, Okay, And I know that I think it's the
official the official time that it adds to the journey.
The detours twenty nine minutes. But a truck you said earlier,
would it would add about an hour? Is that more realistic?

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Well, I think there's so many road conditions it's hard
to say definitively. Look, I would say if you work
on forty forty five minutes, I think that will be
more than enough time. That's some personal tenion.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
But okay, now, Roger, for all of the pain that
you're putting us through, necessary pain. When we drive that
road again, are we going to just go Wow, this
is just so great. Are we going to notice the difference.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
You're definitely going to notice the difference. Hey, you're going
to notice we've fixed the worst parts of the road
will be fixed.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Well, I'm really excited about opening it and we can
actually show proof of concept to people.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Good stuff. Hey, Roger, thanks very much for talking us
through and appreciate it. Roger Brady, Who's with MZTA.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
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