SH1 Tīrau to Waiouru maintenance update

15 September 2025

Taupō to Tūrangi: Taupō to Tūrangi: Work continues at Waitahanui where we are widening the road to create 2 right turn bays. There are lane switches and temporary speed limits in place. Enabling work is expected to start at the Hatepe passing lanes this week using lane switches and temporary speed limits, then from Sunday 21 September, there will be overnight stop/go 5 nights a week at Hatepe. Work is Sunday to Thursday, between 7pm and 6am for asphalting. Temporary speed limits will be in place during the day.

Tīrau: Overnight only road closures started on Sunday 14 September south of the State Highway 1 and Rose Street/Hillcrest Street intersection. Work is between 7pm and 6am Sunday to Thursday. Traffic will be detoured via State Highway 27 (SH27), Patetere Street, Okoroire Road, Hetherington Road, State Highway 5 and back to State Highway 1 (SH1). This adds approx. 6 mins and 10km to your journey.

All of this work is weather dependent.

Gearing up – more than 120 staff reinducted to T2W for season 2

While T2W looks a bit different this season with no 24/7 road closures there is still a huge team delivering the mahi.

We have reinducted more than 120 staff to our first 2 sections that are underway between Taupō and Tūrangi and at Tīrau.

At the project’s peak we expect to have about 400 people working on T2W from site engineers to traffic controllers and pavement teams. We will also engage around 26 subcontractors to help us complete our work this season.

Tīrau works underway

Work started at Tīrau on Sunday night.  There was a blessing held before work started. The team began with enabling work removing kerb and channel.  SH1 is closed each night from the SH1 and Rose Street/Hillcrest Street intersection. Work is between 7pm and 6am Sunday to Thursday. During this time traffic is detoured via SH27, Patetere Street, Okoroire Road, Hetherington Road, SH5 and back to SH1. 

This is also the usual route that is used by over dimension vehicles – those are the big trucks hauling houses or wide loads. This is the route they use even when SH1 is open because they don’t fit under the KiwiRail overbridge. Please take extra care on the detour. Follow the traffic management and the temporary speed limit in place - it’s all there to keep you safe.

Blessing ahead of the works starting. Enabling work, including guardrail removal and removal of kerb and channel.

Road rebuilding 101: How do we rebuild a road

Road maintenance is an exercise in long and short-term planning to manage and maintain our state highway network. NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) manages and maintains more than 11,000km of state highways across New Zealand and we must prioritise where and what we deliver each road maintenance season, within the budgets we have available as part of our National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) 2024-27.

The NLTP is NZTA’s response and commitment to the Government Policy Statement on land transport (GPS) which has a focus on economic growth and productivity.

T2W is made up of 2 types of works:

• Resurfacing which is less invasive where we give the road a new surface.
• Road rebuilding where we are rebuilding it back stronger using more intensive strengthening options.

In season 1, T2W completed 49.4km of total road rebuilding and a further 21.7km of less intensive resurfacing. Here’s a bit more road rebuilding 101 explaining the types of work we do and the final surface treatment. We are completing the final surface on 5 sections of T2W this season where we did our initial work in season 1.

T2W won’t be here forever - sign up for our Waikato road maintenance newsletter

We’re changing how we tell you about upcoming roadworks, focusing more on using emails and social media. 

Sign up to receive emails about upcoming maintenance on Waikato state highways.

Emails and social media are now the way most people prefer to hear about maintenance we’re doing, and they’re more cost-effective and efficient – for example, we can easily tell you about late changes to works happening, such as when planned roadworks are affected by the weather. 

Our emails will tell you about work happening on state highways in your region in the week ahead. Our website has a full list of maintenance emails for every region – if you regularly travel across regions, sign up for emails from the regions relevant to you.

In some cases, you'll also get printed letters from us about work happening in your area.

More information

For more information on the SH1 Tīrau to Waiouru maintenance, contact us at SH1Waikato@nzta.govt.nz

Visit our website nzta.govt.nz/t2w