Safe, reliable and resilient access to remote communities, farming, forestry, and tourism, is important for economic growth and prosperity in the Hawke’s Bay.
Investment in the region’s land transport system has focused on making access and safety improvements to the network, to help get goods to market and export, as well as maintaining growth in tourism. Improvements have been along the Hawke’s Bay Expressway, providing better access to Hawke’s Bay airport and Port of Napier and improving safety at the Links Road/Pakowhai Road intersection. In Hastings, co-investment in the Whakatu Arterial will support future expansion of the industrial park.
Future investment through the Provincial Growth Fund in the Hawke’s Bay is targeted at improving freight regional routes, upgrading roads and bridges to support bigger trucks, carrying more freight, and making improvements to the Napier to Wairoa rail line to transport logs for export.
Safety is a significant focus for our investment in the Hawke’s Bay. Several intersection upgrades have been completed and several other projects are underway. Our investment is targeted to making improvements to critical network links for residents travelling within and outside the region. A total of 163km of roads in the region will be made safer with a variety of treatments, including shoulder widening, median barriers, side barriers, rumble strips and new line markings.
In urban areas, our investment looks to encourage a shift from a reliance on private vehicle use to public transport and walking and cycling. This co-investment, with our partners, will also provide safer and improved access to schools, employment and goods and services that have great social and economic benefits. This also helps create an urban environment where people want to live, work, study and play.
Safety is a significant focus in Hawke’s Bay. Hawke’s Bay has more crashes per vehicle kilometre travelled on local roads and state highways than many other regions. In the past 18 months (January 2018 to mid-June 2019) there have been 18 fatalities on the region’s roads.
Upgrades to several Hawke’s Bay high risk intersections are underway or about to start. Investments focus on reducing risk for people travelling on the region’s critical links, in particular, between Napier Port and Palmerston North. These projects include improvements to:
We have committed to improving 163km of dangerous roads in the region with a variety of safety measures including shoulder widening, median barriers, side barriers, rumble strips and new line markings.
The journeys to and from Gisborne are long and arduous due to the road layout. Slips and crashes cause major disruption when they occur. Members of the community have called for route improvements that do not meet National Land Transport Programme investment criteria but may be eligible for PGF funding. The below projects were announced in September 2018 and are in early stages of investigation:
We have co-invested in an integrated ticketing solution with Hawke’s Bay Regional Council in an effort to encourage an upturn in patronage on the Hawke’s Bay public transport, which has seen a slow decline over the last five years.
In April 2019, the Government announced additional funding to create an extra 34.5km of new cycle ways around Napier and Hastings – an extension of Hawke's Bay's cycle trails network.
Hawke's Bay Trails officially opened in 2012 and consists of nearly 200km of off-road cycle trails. There were more than 600,000 trips recorded across the network last year, with research indicating 60% of trail use is by locals and 40% by visitors to the region. This is part of an investment in the Great Rides, which draw visitors to the regions, from the New Zealand Cycle Trail Enhancement and Extension Fund that provides up to $6 million each year to extend or improve the 22 Great Rides.
In June 2019 the Government announced a suite of PGF funded projects that cover water storage, transport, skills and employment and marae digital connectivity. This included the Hawke’s Bay Transport Package, focused on unlocking economic potential by improving the movements of freight from source to market.
The Hawke’s Bay PGF Transport Package comprised a base PGF funded component made up of:
The package includes further investment of up to $24.5 million for:
The rail hub crosses the regional boundary into the Manawatū but has the potential to impact the freight flows to the Napier Port in Hawke’s Bay. The initial investigations for the rail hub will look at the impacts on the surrounding local road network, including those within the Tararua District and their end of Route 52, running through the Taraura District to Waipukurau, in Hawke’s Bay.
In addition to this package, there has also been PGF investment made into the Napier to Wairoa Railway line to upgrade it to a standard suitable for low speed forestry transport operations.
| NLTP | 2016–18 | 2018–21 |
|---|---|---|
| Forecast total investment | $292 million | $396 million |
| Forecast maintenance and operations | $193 million | $219 million |
| Forecast public transport investment | $12 million | $12 million |
| Forecast walking and cycling | $11 million | $3.8 million |
| Regional network improvements | $70 million | $158 million |
| Total Provincial Growth Fund | $29 million |
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