As good as new! The repaired Raglan to Hamilton highway 23 has been sealed, with lane markings to soon be completed.
The project to restore State Highway 23 between Whāingaroa/Raglan and Whatawhata, which was damaged by a serious underslip in February, is complete.
Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency and its contractors are over the next week (weather-permitting) finishing the final tasks, installing guardrail and lane markings, after which the temporary 30km/h speed restriction will be lifted.
The geosynthetic retaining wall which stablised the crumbling hillside was completed in early May, but paving and resealing the surface of the restored highway was tricky for our contractors to finish, due to the ongoing wet weather.
Traffic returned to the original highway in the middle of May, restricted at times to one lane under stop-go traffic management while the sealing work was done.
Meanwhile, the asphalt on the temporary diversion road, which was built on private property to skirt the underslip, was removed in preparation for it to be restored to the landowners.
The project crew are now preparing to begin the remediation of the affected properties, including fencing, planting and landscaping.
The temporary diversion road opened on 4 March; this allowed geotechnical experts to thoroughly investigate the underslip, and for the best remedy to be decided.
Waka Kotahi is grateful for the generous co-operation of the landowners, which enabled work to begin on the temporary diversion road within days of the initial underslip.
The section of State Highway 23, a small section of the Raglan Deviation, began to crack in late January, when the ground was saturated following unprecedented rainfall. The cracks soon turned into an underslip, which significantly worsened after Cyclone Gabrielle, with a 30m long section of highway dropping around 2.5m.
