SH2 Waihī to Ōmokoroa

We're making State Highway 2 (SH2) between Waihī and Ōmokoroa safer for everyone who uses this increasingly busy road. Work to improve this 40km corridor, including road and shoulder widening, installing a wide centreline, flexible road safety barriers in high-risk areas, and intersection improvements, has been underway since 2019.

The installation of flexible median barriers, and additional intersection upgrades to provide safe turnaround points between Tetley Road and Esdaile Road, are a critical aspect of this project.

The design solutions and improvements we’ve investigated and selected for SH2 will help to keep people safe. The work we are doing will save lives and reduce the risk of crashes. The evidence tells us this.

While the changes may mean some people need to travel further to make a right turn, or consider their journeys differently following these upgrades, the consequence of not making it home altogether is far, far worse.

Road to Zero

This project is being delivered as part of Road to Zero, New Zealand’s road safety strategy, which aims to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on New Zealand's roads by 40 percent by 2050.

No one expects to crash, but people make mistakes – including those of us who are usually careful and responsible drivers. Through Road to Zero, we are creating a safe transport system; one that recognises that people make mistakes and is designed so that these mistakes do not need to cost us our lives.

To make this stretch of road safer we are:

• widening the road
• putting in a wide centreline to help separate oncoming traffic
• widening the road shoulders to give drivers more room
• putting in roadside safety barriers where there are hazards such as power poles, trees and deep ditches
• making intersections safer
• installing flexible median barrier and turnaround areas.

These improvements will save lives and will raise the safety rating of the state highway.

Every day, 15,000 vehicles travel this section of highway – and that figure is growing by around 2-3% each year. More vehicles on the road, means more risk, and 40% of the crashes that resulted in death or serious injury on this section of highway were due to head-on collisions.

By installing median barriers, we can prevent many of these happening in the future. And by combining median and side barriers, we can reduce road-related trauma by 75%. We have the case studies to support this.

In 2022, funding was made available for this part of the project. Since then, we’ve spoken widely with the community about our plan to include flexible median barriers as an extra safety enhancement to this project, as part of New Zealand’s Road to Zero strategy.

With any large road safety project there’s a balance between community safety and convenience, and at many of our community engagement sessions we’ve heard varying perspectives on this. For progress to happen, a balance must be struck, and decisions made.

We know flexible median barriers work. When you hit a flexible barrier, the cables flex, slowing your vehicle and keeping it upright. They’re designed to absorb the impact, protecting you and others in the vehicle, ensuring your vehicle isn’t deflected into another traffic lane. 

Once median barrier is in place, you may need to change the way you use the road.  When leaving the side road you live on, rather than waiting for an opportunity to turn right across a busy state highway, you’ll turn left and travel to the nearest roundabout.  There will be six safe turnaround areas on this stretch of SH2.

The roundabouts will be spaced  every three to five kilometres, and will make turning right much safer for those who live along SH2. Roundabouts can reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured by at least 60%, because they make head-on and side impact crashes much less likely, and lower vehicle speeds.

Crashes cost our community in many ways. These changes will require some patience and understanding, but they will make the road safer for everyone.

Roundabout distances map