2. Tama’s team welcomes special visitor

Structures supervisor Tama Pene and his Hamilton bridge crew met a special visitor to their Powells Road Underpass construction site this month – Kiingi Tuheitia. Te Kiingi was touring the Hamilton Section project as a guest of the CityEdge Alliance and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency. He was keen to meet and speak with staff ‘on the ground’. Tama introduced his bridge team and chatted with Kiingi Tuheitia and his wife Makau Ariki about how the Powells Road Underpass was built.

“Te Kiingi asked how much concrete we had used and how much it weighed. He seemed pretty interested in the whole job, and he wanted to have a photo taken with our team.”

3. Plan for the cultural reserve

The graphic below shows the plan for the cultural reserve being created at Tamahere. It will feature a paataka (food storehouse) near the entrance off the East West Link Road, and connect with shared paths. It is designed as a place of contemplation with walkways, special seating areas, native plantings and a lookout over archaeological features in the nearby gully.

4. Sealing interchanges and local roads

Interchanges and local roads are the focus for our asphalt team over winter. Cold and wet weather limits our ability to lay long strips of asphalt on the expressway lanes, so the team is focused on completing local road connections through to spring. They have completed most of the  asphalt on the East West Link Road at Tamahere and about 50% on Ruakura Road. They are currently working at the Resolution Interchange. The team can only ay asphalt if they have fine weather with temperatures above 5-10 degrees. The photo shows the team at work on Ruakura Road.

5. Update on Resolution Extension

A large deposit of unstable ground has been dug out and backfilled with rock to create a stable foundation for extending Resolution Drive to the expressway. 5000 cubic metres of peat and other soil has been removed. The concrete walking and cycling underpass is almost complete, and the road will soon be built to travel over this structure. The underpass will connect new shared paths on each side of the road, and provide connections to the city’s shared path network.

More information

For more information on the Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway, contact us at waikatoexpressway@nzta.govt.nz or phone us on 0800 322 044.

Visit our website www.nzta.govt.nz/hamilton