A shift in political direction has postponed consultation on the Levin bypass.
The new government is currently reviewing roading and transport projects, and prior plans to carry out more public consultation on the road will now wait.
In September, Labour's then-transport spokesperson Michael Wood said the Horowhenua expressway project wouldlikely continue under a Labour government, but after a six-month delay to review it.
He said the evidence he'd seen indicated the expressway looked like a good project.
"We know there is a need for an upgrade in your area," he said at the time.
"We know it is a serious project with serious drivers behind it."
A spokesperson for new Transport Minister Phil Twyford told Fairfax Media that the new minister was focusing on other projects during the first 100 days of government, but that no projects that had already started had been altered, except the East-West link in Auckland.
In the last round of public consultation in August, public submissions on options for the route showed clear preference for it to run west of Levin, which conflicted with a previously officially-stated preference for an eastern route.
A planning map released at the time showed multiple options around the town, adding uncertainty for highway residents already worried about their properties' future after years of delays and plan changes by NZTA.
The NZ Transport Agency's August 2017 planning map of indicative options for an expressway from Otaki to north of Levin.
Transport agency lower North Island regional relationships director Emma Speight told Fairfax she could not say when the next lot of consultation on the proposed bypass would happen.
She said there were currently discussions taking place with the government.
The Levin bypass project is known as the "Otaki to north of Levin" (O2NL) stretch of an overall infrastructure plan that encompasses Transmission Gully, the existing Kapiti Expressway and the upcoming Peka Peka to Otaki stretch.
A planned outcome of the road would be relieving pressure on Levin's main street, which is a consistently traffic-laden thoroughfare where angle-parked shoppers attempting to reverse into the road and large freight trucks rumbling through make for a hazardous combination.
Several accidents have occurred on the stretch in the past year.
