Transmission Gully progress towards opening

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Transmission Gully progress towards opening

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#2806056 2-Nov-2021 12:13

wellygary:

DjShadow:

They are about to do the final sealing work on the Porirua/Tawa end to connect the motorway, be good to see all those bumps gone

https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/126844858/transmission-gully-set-to-be-connected-to-state-highway-1-but-still-no-opening-date-confirmed

I can tell you now this is going to turn into an unmitigated disaster ,

8-10am on a Saturday morning is a very busy time for motorway traffic.... lots of people out and about taking kids to sport, running errands, going to Bunnings/M10 etc, .. This will blow up badly .. expect Tawa to gridlock, along with huge tailbacks for those remaining on the Mway

From NZTA Twitter

"Plan ahead for SIGNIFICANT DELAYS on Sat 6 & Sat 13 Nov, 8am-10am,while TG paving crews finish laying 1000 tonnes of asphalt to connect the new motorway to SH1."

https://twitter.com/WakaKotahiWgtn/status/1454906771127013376?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

And look what just arrived in my Meltlink notifications.

FFS can't these organisations talk to each other and do some combined planning.

Did Eric Clapton really think she looked wonderful...or was it after the 15th outfit she tried on and he just wanted to get to the party and get a drink?

DjShadow

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#2806082 2-Nov-2021 13:08

Latest update on the Project here, NZTA still not giving a date: https://nzta.govt.nz/projects/wellington-northern-corridor/transmission-gully-motorway/about-the-project/project-news/project-newsletter-october-2021/

There is a note at the bottom saying they know there are patches where there is next to no Mobile coverage so they comment your phone will try to connect to any available network or to wait in our cars for their radar network to detect a problem and help will be dispatched.

floydbloke

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#2806157 2-Nov-2021 14:00

DjShadow:

Latest update on the Project here, NZTA still not giving a date: https://nzta.govt.nz/projects/wellington-northern-corridor/transmission-gully-motorway/about-the-project/project-news/project-newsletter-october-2021/

...

Poor form not giving a date, so much for accountability to the public.

Positive that most of the physical work appears to have been done and it's mainly down to red-tape now. Let's hope things don't get buried in some public servant's in-tray.

Did Eric Clapton really think she looked wonderful...or was it after the 15th outfit she tried on and he just wanted to get to the party and get a drink?

jonherries

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#2806403 2-Nov-2021 21:06

DjShadow:
Latest update on the Project here, NZTA still not giving a date: https://nzta.govt.nz/projects/wellington-northern-corridor/transmission-gully-motorway/about-the-project/project-news/project-newsletter-october-2021/

There is a note at the bottom saying they know there are patches where there is next to no Mobile coverage so they comment your phone will try to connect to any available network or to wait in our cars for their radar network to detect a problem and help will be dispatched.

Looking at the coverage maps for both major networks, looks like the gaps are in similar places which I suppose isn’t too surprising. What surprised me was how large the gaps were.

Jon

Bung

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#2806492 3-Nov-2021 01:17

How many years has Transmission Gully been under construction? Do the communications networks have to wait for it to be completed before filling in the blanks?

sbiddle

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#2806505 3-Nov-2021 07:20

Bung: How many years has Transmission Gully been under construction? Do the communications networks have to wait for it to be completed before filling in the blanks?

There is very little in the way of additional coverage being added by the individual networks right now - the whole 3 are primarily focussing on infill and extra capacity.

Why would the networks want to spend money building multiple sites each when RCG will step in and provide RCG site(s) to cover the area?

Bung

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#2806511 3-Nov-2021 08:01

Whatever. The point is a brand new section of SH1 shouldn't be opening with up to 20% of it having no mobile coverage. The news should have been that this was anticipated and the infrastructure needed for the required transmitters included in other site work.

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naggyman

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#2806526 3-Nov-2021 08:11

floydbloke:

Poor form not giving a date, so much for accountability to the public.

There will be no public date until the lawyers have finished litigating this project for the umpteenth time.

Morgan French-Stagg

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tieke

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#2806607 3-Nov-2021 10:28

floydbloke:

Poor form not giving a date, so much for accountability to the public.

Positive that most of the physical work appears to have been done and it's mainly down to red-tape now. Let's hope things don't get buried in some public servant's in-tray.

I suspect it's not quite "red tape", but more that, as you said: "most of the physical work appears to have been done". I know that the PPP contractors want to be paid out ASAP to avoid penalty payments (which no doubt will involved a lot of work for the previously mentioned lawyers), but we definitely need to allow time for Waka Kotahi to fully check for themselves that the road is up to spec.

I know that around the time of the main covid-related shutdown, there was solid talk that huge sections of the initial road layers hadn't been done properly, and that the contractors might simply bail as the cost to sort it out might eclipse the penalty clauses. I assume that the extra payments made were to forestall this, but the best time to remedy any underlying concerns is now, before the contractors leave and the road is in use. I'm not sure exactly what clauses are in the contract to cover the contractors to provide remedies for major issues found after handover, but given the pretty much universal condemnation of the terms of the mostly politically-motivated PPP, I'm not holding out much hope.

The last thing we need is for NZTA to be rushed to finish their final inspections because of an arbitrary date, only to later have to spend billions more of public money and interrupt people using the road for months and months in order to fix any substantial hidden construction issues.

eracode

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#2806615 3-Nov-2021 10:45

tieke:

... I know that around the time of the main covid-related shutdown, there was solid talk that huge sections of the initial road layers hadn't been done properly, and that the contractors might simply bail as the cost to sort it out might eclipse the penalty clauses. ...

Begs the question of why they weren't done properly. Lowest price tenderer > least-skilled contractor, etc? Sometimes our whole infrastructure planning and execution seems like third-world stuff.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

ghettomaster

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#2806616 3-Nov-2021 10:46

Geektastic:
MikeB4: Hutt City has a lot of park and ride facilities however they are a target for criminals

That's the Hutt for you I'm afraid.

Wait… was this meant to imply that crime is only an issue in the Hutt?

martyyn

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#2806642 3-Nov-2021 11:16

My understanding was the 26 Sept date would only be open with one lane in each direction, a limit of 80kph and from Tawa to McKays with no access to any intersections in between.

The last lockdown allowed them to push the date as far as possible to finish the whole thing. Hence no confirmed date yet.

I know a number of the subcontractors and they've all said the same thing "unofficially".

As for the lack of mobile coverage, I drive over Paekok Hill a couple of times a month and the only inconvenience is my phone stops streaming music if it's something I haven't downloaded.

Do we really need mobile coverage over every piece of road in the country ?

tieke

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#2806653 3-Nov-2021 11:58

Good article about the PPP/build issues from the time of the first shutdown is here

Salient bit about the construction issues:

"Roads can be seen as comprising three layers: the surface, base course (or 'road base'), and the subsoil underneath.

Issues with the project as it stands allegedly stretch right into its subsoil and make it difficult for a road surface like asphalt or chip seal to be laid on top of it in a way that would make it financially worthwhile for the builders to complete the project.

At the subsoil level perforated pipes are laid to absorb water and drain it out through non-perforated pipes which carry it out to waterways and other areas. This is to prevent the subsoil underneath the road getting too moist and making the ground underneath it unstable.

However, sources close to the project have alleged non-perforated pipes were used in some places where perforated pipes should have been, and in other instances pipes did not lead out into waterways. Both errors would allow water to keep building up beneath the subsoil and threaten the road's stability.

Above the subsoil lies the road base, where rocks are mixed in with a stabiliser to provide a solid thick surface for the final road layer to be laid on top of.

Sources close to the project have said there are problems here too with rocks not up to specification and a stabiliser that was meant to bind those rocks together not having been spread evenly through the road base.

Stabiliser spread too thinly?

The change allegedly arose because a machine was altered to allow it to spread stabiliser over a wider area. That would make it possible to do the same job with the machine in fewer passes, saving time and money.

Altering the machine in that way meant the stabiliser was more concentrated in the middle of the road and made the outer parts of it - lanes that heavy vehicles and trucks were more likely to travel on - more prone to wear and tear.

The issues within the two layers beneath the road allegedly meant asphalt or chip seal laid on top would have to be heavily reworked within the 25-year period WGP was supposed to maintain the road. That would mean major ongoing costs for the builders of the project.

People close to the project have alleged NZTA was not made aware of many issues that had arisen during its construction. Quality control processes could have caught some of the matters above, but the structure of the PPP meant WGP were responsible for deciding how much of the testing associated with the project would be done."

tieke

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#2806663 3-Nov-2021 12:16

eracode:

question of why they weren't done properly. Lowest price tenderer > least-skilled contractor, etc? Sometimes our whole infrastructure planning and execution seems like third-world stuff.

Lowest price indeed, as this article about the PPP contract review points out, the price that the contractors had to agree to was not only pulled out of thin air, there was only a 75% chance that our government-owned road crews would be able to meet this price, and they don't have to make a profit. Private companies would be able to do it so cheaply because they would be magically "innovative and efficient". Strangely enough, many potential contractors weren't too keen on bidding on a project where you were almost certainly going to lose money, unless you could renegotiate halfway through:

"The bidders weren’t so keen. One interviewee called the price “demonstrably unrealistic”, and another said that it was “dubious” whether it actually achieved value for money for the Crown.

Setting the tender price so low meant firms were tendering for a project knowing that it was unrealistic to be able to deliver it at that cost. The review noted that setting the price low essentially “double counted” cost savings because the public sector figure was already required to consider the most efficient and cost-effective way of doing things."

Bung

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#2806702 3-Nov-2021 13:27

AFAIK there are no Government owned road crews. Probably the same contractors would have been involved. I did hear some years ago that some aspects were upgraded because the partnership wasn't prepared to maintain the NZTA low cost design. Possibly this is why some parts are asphalt rather than chip seal.

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