Desert Rd reopens after two-month closure, further work required later this year

Sate Highway 1 Desert Road restoration and resealing work is close to finishing. The road will reopen to traffic at 1pm on Friday. Photo / NZTA

State Highway 1 Desert Road will reopen tomorrow, however further work will be required later this year.

The state highway has been closed between Tūrangi and Waiōuru, including the Desert Rd, since January 13 to repair 28 lane kilometres of road and rebuild the deck of the Mangatoetoenui Bridge, south of Rangipō.

While SH1 was closed, the detour from north to south was via SH41, SH47, SH4, SH49 and back to SH1 in Waiōuru. This added around 35-40 minutes to journeys.

There will be further works required to finish the final surface on the Desert Rd later in the year. This work will, wherever possible, be done at night, New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi said.

The scheduling for when this final surfacing work would be done was still being worked through.

The work is part of New Zealand’s largest road maintenance project, the Tīrau to Waiōuru accelerated maintenance programme.

It is part of the Government’s $2.07 billion investment into road and drainage renewal and maintenance across 2024-27 via the state highway pothole prevention fund.

Roger Brady, regional manager of maintenance and operations for NZTA, said the Desert Rd project had been “a major undertaking”.

“The team is putting in a huge effort to get the road reopened on schedule, laying an average of 500 tonnes a day of asphalt over the last week,” Brady said.

“In just over eight weeks ... contractors have rebuilt and repaired 28 lane kilometres, which is 12 lane km more than planned, and completely rebuilt the deck of the Mangatoetoenui Bridge.”

He said by doing the work under full road closures, more invasive construction methods could be used which would not be possible under stop/go traffic management.

This meant SH1 was being brought up to a higher standard quickly.

The Desert Rd would reopen to traffic from 1pm tomorrow.

Some parts of it would be under traffic management, including temporary speed limits, while the chipseal is embedded further by the vehicles using the road.

This is expected to be for three to four days.

NZTA asked road users to be mindful of loose chip and drive to the signposted speed limit, leaving a good following distance from the car in front, ideally three car lengths or more.

SH1 maintenance project stats

What’s been achieved on SH1 in central and southern Waikato since September 2024:

• Lane km completed: 86.78 lane km (480,926sqm)

• Road rebuild using foam bitumen stabilising completed: 51 lane km (270,102sqm)

• Road rebuild using structural asphalt concrete completed: 4.78 lane km (26,837sqm)

• Re-seals completed: 31 lane km (162,514sqm) - includes chip seal and asphalt concrete surfacing

• Tonnes of aggregate used: around 162,609

• Truckloads of metal: Up to 145 loads per site per day

• Number of workforce hours to date (road crews): around 85,000

• Number of contracting firms involved: Up to 32 working at once