In the pouring rain, construction started on State Highway 1 \u014ctaki to North of Levin today.<\/p>\n
The four-lane highway \u2013 the northernmost section of the Wellington Northern Corridor \u2013 will span 24 kilometres when the project is set to be completed in 2029.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was wearing Red Band gumboots, while Transport Minister Chris Bishop donned brown leather shoes as they turned the sod on the project.<\/p>\n
\u014c2NL is crucial infrastructure, as Horowhenua Mayor Bernie Wanden pointed out, because the district is experiencing significant population growth.<\/p>\n
“We have long been undervalued and underappreciated, but this project is changing that,” Wanden said.<\/p>\n
“The last Census tells the story. Between 2018-2023, Wellington\u2019s population actually dipped slightly while ours grew by more than 3000, and that growth is not slowing, it\u2019s accelerating.”<\/p>\n
The current route is also one of the country\u2019s most dangerous roads, with the transport minister describing it as a “death trap”.<\/p>\n
During the five years to 2024, 70 people have died or been seriously injured along the current route.<\/p>\n
Over the next five years, the lower North Island’s roading network is getting a $3.5 billion investment with the SH2 Melling interchange and \u014c2NL combined.<\/p>\n
Another major project and election promise is the second Mount Victoria tunnel.<\/p>\n
National said they would begin construction on it during their first term.<\/p>\n
“We will,” Luxon said.<\/p>\n
The public is yet to hear any details about the second Mount Victoria tunnel for Wellington.<\/p>\n
But Bishop promised locals “will see some things about other projects in the coming months”.<\/p>\n
As for the projects already underway, the Government expects the creation of thousands of jobs as a result.<\/p>\n
“We are a Government that is all about driving economic growth because that’s how our people get ahead,” Luxon said.<\/p>\n
The SH2 Melling interchange and bridge construction is expected to be complete in 2031.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the pouring rain, construction started on State Highway 1 \u014ctaki to North of Levin today. The four-lane…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69,135,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-39689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-transport"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}