18 Dec 2018

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A high-risk stretch of highway between Innes Road and Burwood will undergo a $2.5 million upgrade.

New Zealand Transport Agency contractors will install safety barriers down the middle and on the sides of Queen Elizabeth II Drive. Road markings that are easier to see at night and in wet conditions will also be applied.

The upgrade aims to make State Highway 74 (QEII Drive) safer for motorists and cyclists and those students walking to school in the area. In the 10 years to 2016, one person died and 14 were seriously injured in crashes in QEII Drive.

Safety barriers will be installed in QEII Drive.

Safety barriers will be installed in QEII Drive.

The project is part of the Government’s $1.4 billion Safe Network Programme, a collaborative initiative that aims to prevent up to 160 deaths and serious injuries every year across high-risk state highways and local roads.

Transport Agency System Manager Pete Connors says the safety barriers will make a real difference.

“Flexible road safety barriers ‘catch’ vehicles that leave their lane before they hit something less forgiving – like other vehicles or roadside hazards such as trees, poles and ditches,” Mr Connors says.

“When a vehicle hits a barrier, the high-tension wire cables flex, slowing down the vehicle and keeping it upright during and after a collision.

“The barrier absorbs the impact, reducing the force on the people in the vehicle.

“People will always make mistakes, but these changes to the road will help ensure simple mistakes don't cost lives.”

Mr Connors says the side barriers will also protect people who use the nearby shared path to walk and bike to school or work.

He says the road and shared path will only get busier with new residential developments and the opening of the Avonside Girls' High School and Shirley Boys’ High School campus in April next year.

Road preparations will soon get under way, with the safety barriers to be installed in the New Year.

Speed restrictions and traffic management will be in place at times during the work, which is expected to be finished mid-year.