SH10 Kāeo Bridge upgrade

The old single lane bridge just north of Kāeo township and the adjoining SH10/Whangaroa Road intersection was a safety concern for the local community, visitors and other road users.

The Kāeo Bridge is located on the Twin Coast Discovery Route, Northland’s main tourist route, and provides access to visitor destinations such as Doubtless Bay, Karikari Peninsula and Cape Reinga.

During peak visitor season, the bridge was a bottleneck, creating delays for everyone. Many of those driving across the bridge were not familiar with one-lane bridges and the need to give way.

Features

This project replaced the old one-lane bridge with a new two-lane bridge across the Kāeo River, and a roundabout to improve traffic flow through this section of road.

Benefits

The SH10 Kāeo Bridge project will improve road safety and reduce peak season vehicle queuing along the state highway.

By making it safer and easier to move through the intersection and over the bridge, the project will improve the experience of visitors, freight traffic and other road users travelling the Twin Coast Discovery Route. This supports Northland’s tourism industry and broader economic development.

The new bridge design will have minimal impact on the area as the route is over land that is already cleared, and it crosses the Kāeo River without changing the riverbed, banks or flow.

Flood mitigation

This area is low lying and extreme weather events cause frequent flooding. The new bridge is designed not to exacerbate this problem, avoiding any adverse upstream impacts to Kāeo.

The new bridge isthe same height as the previous one so that the embankment at the western end doesn’t need to be higher – this may have created a damming effect when waters are high.

In addition, at 110m, the new bridge will be over twice as long as the old bridge. This means that a larger volume of water will be able to flow underneath it.

Funding source

Funding for this project is from the National Land Transport Fund.