Winter brings wet, cold… and potholes to Aotearoa New Zealand roads.
The dark and often rainy months from May to September are the time our state highways are most at risk from damage, with water the main culprit.
What’s more, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency can’t do full road resealing or repair works over winter – these need warm and dry conditions. Usually, this means summer, but the record wet much of Aotearoa has experienced so far in 2023 created a big challenge for Waka Kotahi and its road maintenance team this season.
Still, despite all the weather could throw at us, Waka Kotahi contractors resealed or replaced a significant 488 lane kilometres on Waikato and Bay of Plenty highways over the summer. That’s the length of nearly five thousand rugby fields, or a road trip from Cambridge to Wellington.
It is also nearly a quarter of the total resealing and repairing work done across the entire state highway network this season, underlining the agency’s investment in this vital economic region.
“It’s an impressive feat from our contractors, particularly when you factor in the wet spring followed by the record wet summer that continued through autumn, with some parts of the North Island copping more than three times the average rainfall,” says Rob Campbell, Waka Kotahi Regional Manager Maintenance and Operations for Waikato Bay of Plenty.
The Coromandel region was pounded with more than a normal full year’s rain totals before winter even began. Tauranga had its wettest summer on record, with three times its usual average rainfall, and Hamilton had twice its normal average rainfall, according to NIWA’s seasonal climate summary. Extreme weather with intense rainfall is only going to continue as climate change accelerates.
Waka Kotahi set out with an ambitious maintenance programme this season; Mr Campbell points to a serious investment targeted to resurface or repair 2450 lane kilometres across Aotearoa, the largest ever single-season programme on the network. The 2021-24 National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) provided a significant increase in maintenance funding, including an additional $400 million over the initial budget, focused on road renewals.
“This is a 30 percent increase on the previous three years (2018-21) and reinforces the critical importance of our state highway network to the country’s economic and social wellbeing, connecting people and places and efficiently moving freight to markets,” he says.
“It was a huge undertaking, underlining our commitment to ensuring our highways remain safe, accessible and resilient.”
Over the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions, the target was 597 lane kilometres resealed or replaced; achieving nearly 80 percent of this target is a testament to the hard mahi in extremely challenging conditions.
But just because it’s now winter, it doesn’t mean our contractors are putting their feet up and hibernating until spring. Instead, they focus on keeping the roads open by filling potholes and doing minor and temporary repairs. It’s all about holding roads to the best state possible until the proper remedial work can begin again in the spring.
Over winter, we have crews out monitoring the highway network, ready to respond swiftly once they are aware of potholes and other rain defects. There are crews on call at night and over the weekends, who spring into action once we are notified of a problem that needs immediate repair. They are contractually obliged to repair potholes within 48 hours, or in case of an urgent situation, they need to be on-site within an hour.
All drivers on our winter roads should expect to encounter potholes – particularly after rainstorms. The key to avoiding damaging your car is to drive to the conditions, and that means being sensible behind the wheel, especially at night and any time it is raining. Slow down, stay alert and make sure you report any potholes to us so we can get them sorted right away. Call 0800 4 HIGHWAYS (0800 44 44 49) to let us know about any issues on the state highway network.
Remember, when you see a hole – call the pothole patrol!
Drivers should have insurance for their vehicles in the event of any damage that occurs on the road. Your insurer should be your first point of contact if your vehicle is damaged. If appropriate, your insurer will then get in touch with Waka Kotahi. Along with its contractors, Waka Kotahi only has liability if we know about a pothole and do not repair it within the contractual timeframe.
The vast majority of compensation requests are declined because the investigation process usually confirms contractors have met contractual responsibilities.
