Roading error costs millions

Kaye Clark. Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

Three roundabouts on one of New Zealand's newest roads are being demolished and rebuilt before the highway is even open to the public - at a cost of millions of dollars.

The blunder is on the $110million, 16km Taupo Eastern Arterial bypass which will be completed next year and will divert traffic on State Highway 1 behind Taupo, between Five Mile Bay and Wairakei.

The original roundabouts were designed by the Taupo District Council and signed off by the New Zealand Transport Agency which is funding most of the project.

However, after one roundabout was finished and the other two almost completed, NZTA did a u-turn, requesting the Taupo council make changes. It said the design would not have allowed traffic to flow properly.

The changes are expected to cost taxpayers "a few million dollars", council project manager Ron Boyle said. The final cost has not been determined.

It is the second time work on the roundabouts has stopped. Several months ago there were concerns they were not being built to specification to allow 53-tonne trucks to use them.

That was shown not to be the case but NZTA wanted the roundabouts rebuilt anyway, said Boyle.

"There will be a considerable benefit. Making these changes will save each vehicle a minute or two and when you are talking 6000 vehicles a day it doesn't take long to see the benefits," he said.

NZTA Waikato state highway manager Kaye Clark defended rebuilding the roundabouts. Normally issues would be seen at design stage but it did not happen in this case, she said.

"We decided it was not at the level of service we wanted to deliver and [reconstruction] was the right thing to do," she said.

Savings had been made in other areas of the job that would cover the reconstruction cost.