The NZ Transport Agency is advising that the Hawke‘s Bay Expressway between the Longlands Road and Flaxmere Road roundabouts will be closed for four days next week.

The road will be closed between 9am and 4pm each day from Monday 10 June until Thursday 13 June, weather dependent. A detour via Maraekakaho Road and York Road will be in place.

The closure is necessary to allow workers to make safety improvements including installing light poles, wire rope median barriers and rumble strips.

“Whenever possible, we carry out road closures at night but we‘re installing rumble strips to improve safety, and these can only be installed in dry, daytime conditions,” senior project manager Rob Partridge says.

“The detour isn‘t expected to add more than five minutes to travel times, but we encourage drivers to plan ahead and be aware of potential delays.”

Median barriers will eventually run the length of the Hawke‘s Bay Expressway and are a vital part of the strategy to reduce deaths and serious injuries. Between 2008 and 2017, 10 people were killed and 46 were seriously injured in crashes along the expressway between Bay View and Paki Paki.

“We‘re making great progress with safety improvements along the Hawke‘s Bay Expressway. The median barriers that are being installed have been proven to improve your chance of surviving a crash by up to 90 percent,” Partridge says.

“We understand that people make mistakes or can have a medical incident at the wheel – the barriers prevent their vehicle from hitting another one head-on. They are lifesavers.”

The project is being delivered as part of the Safe Network Programme, a collaborative, prioritised programme of proven safety interventions on high-risk routes across New Zealand.

These safety improvements are part of the Transport Agency‘s $36 million investment in the Hawke‘s Bay Expressway, which began in early 2017 at Watchman Road.