SH2 Wainui Road

Making Ohope to Ōpōtiki safer

Thanks to all those who came along to our open day in March.

We had around 100 people attend and over 250 pieces of feedback.

The feedback certainly helped us to better understand, from a local’s perspective, the safety issues along this stretch of road, and what will work best to make it safer. The common themes were:

• Wainui Road – it’s narrow and windy, and slow drivers are causing frustration. Cyclist safety and speed are a problem for this section.
• SH2/Wainui Road intersection – this intersection is the number one public safety concern. The intersection also floods when there is a big storm, and it cuts Opotiki off from the rest of the Bay of Plenty.
• State Highway 2 – high number of serious crashes. Contributing factors include roadside hazards (ditches and trees), tight corners and narrow shoulders so you don’t have much room to recover.
• Ohiwa Beach Road/SH2/Waiotahe Valley Back Road intersection – accessing the two side roads from SH2 is causing a lot of concern. It’s very hard to see oncoming vehicles because of the curve in the road and the bridge, and there is little room for error when vehicles are travelling at high speed.

So, what comes next?

Since the open day, the team has been reviewing your valuable feedback and looking at the best way to improve safety along this stretch of road. The route is complicated and complex with a windy local road and a high-speed state highway, and they both have their own unique issues.

It's important to get it right and we will continue working with key stakeholders including the Whakatane and Opotiki District Councils, Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Police, iwi partners, and freight groups to look at possible safety solutions.

We will soon have safety improvement options for SH2 Wainui Road to Opotiki ready to present to the community.

We will need your help to make sure we haven’t missed anything important. Another open day is planned for later this year where you can see our plans and speak to the safety team.  The date, time and location of this will be advertised in our next newsletter.

We’re aiming to start construction late 2018.

In the meantime, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact our Community Engagement Manager, Justin Rae, justin.rae@saferoads.co.nz or 021 390 732.

More information

For more information on the SH2 Wainui Road to Ōpōtiki project, visit our website www.nzta.govt.nz/WR2P