Kia ora

Welcome to the latest project update from the State Highway 58 Safety Improvements team.

As expected during a Wellington winter, July and August brought some challenging weather. Despite this, the team have been hard at work, with a large retaining wall finished, around 75% of the surfacing through Stage 1 completed, and line marking well underway.

Of course, that wasn’t the only challenge we faced. On 17 August the country moved to Alert Level 4. Work on all construction projects was paused and only essential safety and emergency works were allowed to be carried out. Construction work was able to restart on Wednesday 1 September, after the lower North Island moved to Alert Level 3. And from tomorrow at 11.59 everywhere outside of Auckland will move to Alert Level 2.

Under Alert Level 3 we're adhering to strict health and safety protocols for the protection of workers and the travelling public. This has limited the works our teams have been able to do, and means the full impact of COVID-19 may be far more than the time spent at Alert Level 4.

With the announcement that we are moving to Alert Level 2 we will review and adjust these processes accordingly. Safety of our staff and public will remain paramount.

So when driving through the SH58 worksite, please be patient and respectful and look out for our workers who are stepping outside of their bubbles to do this essential work.

While the full impact of COVID-19 on the SH58 project is still to be determined, we’re focused on the remaining work that still needs to be completed.

We expect that Stage 1 of the project – the section from the SH2 Haywards Interchange to Mt Cecil Rd - will be complete in late 2021.

We know people are eager to use and enjoy this road with its new safety improvements. We’ll be providing more details about completion on this part of the project as soon as were able to.

COVID-19 worksite health and safety precautions

At Alert Level 3, work on capital projects that were stopped at Alert Level 4 were restarted, with strict health and safety protocols for workers and road users in place.

Each project that resumed needed to have a specific COVID-19 plan in place so the crews could work safely at Alert Level 3. This will also apply at Alert Level 2. These plans align with strict industry standards provided by Construction Health and Safety NZ (CHASNZ).

These standards and guidelines include measures for pre-planning work, documenting the health and safety of staff, ensuring safe physical distancing is maintained, cleaning of all plant, tools and vehicles, and being able to quickly and accurately trace people should they come in contact with someone who contracts COVID-19. This also extends to keeping the public that travel through the work sites safe.

Each project plan must be endorsed by Waka Kotahi before the project can resume.

More information on these standards can be found on the CHASNZ COVID19 website.

Installation of temporary framework to protect workers and support the excavation during the installation - looking east towards the Hutt Valley.

Stormwater and drainage work

Among the work we’ve been undertaking over the last few months was the installation of new stormwater channels and drainage along the sides of the highway.  Part of this system includes a large culvert underneath the road, close to the SH2 Haywards interchange, which will carry stormwater from the hills in Belmont Park down to the Hutt River.

Our team hit a real snag when we uncovered a high voltage junction box that wasn’t marked on the plans. This meant we needed to change the culvert design to go around the junction box, making a relatively simple job a lot more complex.

The challenge was installing the new culvert without damaging the high voltage cables, which can be sensitive to vibration. Due to the dangers of this part of the project, we worked closely with Wellington Electricity and Transpower to ensure it was done to standard and safely.

We’re now making real progress with the culvert.

Tying in at Hugh Duncan Street intersection.

Finishing touches on Stage 1

With much of the large construction for Stage 1 complete, we're now able to move onto the finishing touches.

There are a couple of side roads in Stage 1, as well as some properties connecting directly to the state highway, that we are now able to focus on. We’d like to thank the residents of these properties for their ongoing patience and understanding, and we’re pleased that we can now start putting their roads back to rights.

Cable hauling with Wellington Electricity on Stage 2a

Progress on Stage 2a – Mt Cecil Road to Harris Road

On Stage 2a of the SH58 project we have been working closely with Wellington Electricity and other utilities to relocate the services alongside the highway.

We have now completed all of the ducting and cable pulling through this section.

Unfortunately, the extremely wet weather over July and August wasn’t favourable for the surfacing work we had planned to do through this section. We’re now waiting for a good window of weather to be able to put down the next layer of material.

We thank everyone for their patience as we deliver these safety improvements. Please be assured, we’re doing everything we can to complete this section as quickly as possible.

Just like on Stage 1, it will take some time for the full impact of COVID-19 on the Stage 2 works to be determined. Based on progress so far, we expect that works on Stage 2 will be completed in mid-2022.

We’ll be able to provide a more specific completion date once we have been able to assess the impacts of COVID-19 and get greater certainty over the remaining programme.

More information

For more information on the SH58 improvements project, contact us at sh58safety@nzta.govt.nz

Visit our website www.nzta.govt.nz/sh58-improvements