Katikati residents may have to live with traffic through the centre of their town for another decade.
Hopes for a bypass have received a knock-back from Transit New Zealand.
An analysis has shown that ground conditions over a section of the planned route are worse than expected, the Western Bay of Plenty District Council has been told.
This means costs have more than doubled from the $1.9 million estimated as far back as 1987 to $4.4 million now, Transit says.
At the same time, the accident rate on the state highway through Katikati has been dropping.
The council's director of engineering, Gary Main, says that with rising costs and reducing benefits, the project will clearly be delayed.
The benefit/cost ratio, which determines funding for work, was 4:0 but is now 3:5. For the bypass project, the qualifying ratio has been calculated as high as 3:8 but is now down to 1:6, he says.
Katikati bypass plan on shelf
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