A $45 million Dunedin roading project designed to increase safety for the occupants of 25,000 vehicles a day was officially opened yesterday, as a bridge spanning the four-lane Caversham Valley highway took its first vehicles.
Transport Minister Simon Bridges, watched by a crowd of about 200, including children from the Carisbrook Heights School, cut the ribbon to open the Lookout Point Bridge.
The project was praised not only for its expected impact on lowering the number of crashes causing death and injury in the area, but also its effect on improving the look of Dunedin's southern entrance.
The event celebrated the end of a two-stage, five-year project to expand the city's southern highway.
The first stage opened in 2012, providing a four-lane, median-divided route from Andersons Bay Rd to Barnes Dr. Stage two continued the improvements from Barnes Dr to Lookout Point, and included the bridge that yesterday provided a road link between Riselaw Rd and Mornington Rd.
Mr Bridges said the safety work was one of the largest infrastructure projects in Dunedin.
The road was the busiest piece of highway south of Christchurch, and now had four lanes with a 60kmh speed limit on the hill, and a cycling and walking path parallel to the highway linking it to other Dunedin cycleways.
It would allow a quicker, more free-flowing journey.
''Now Dunedin has a great entrance for a great city.''
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull said the work improved what was ''the first impression people get of our city'' when they come in from the airport.
The highway linked the city with the south and with Central Otago.
''It's a very important route.''
Between 2004 and 2008, there had been 99 crashes between the Glen and Lookout Point, with three fatalities. Fifty had resulted in injury.
The improvements were ''clearly necessary'' from a safety point of view.
NZ Transport Agency projects team leader Simon Underwood, who headed the project in Dunedin, said the opening was ''the fruition of a lot of effort of a lot of people for a number of years''.
Mr Underwood said he felt a sense of reward, from working with a team of skilled people.
''It's been a long journey."
An NZTA spokeswoman said the new bridge would allow motorists and pedestrians to avoid heavy traffic when crossing the highway corridor, and enabled all turns on to and off the highway to be made via left turns.
The bridge was 35m wide, was supported by 24 18m beams and had 98 tonnes of reinforcing steel for earthquake resilience.
The highway project
2009: NZTA buys more than 20 properties between Barnes Dr and Lookout Point.
2010:Downer EDI Works wins contract to design and construct improvements to Caversham highway expected to cost $30m-$35m.
2011: Excavators clear roadside vegetation as work begins on stage one. Plan developed to translocate rare peripatus ''worm'' to nearby land, and develop management plan, after concerns about effect of highway work.
2012: Stage two begins, with NZTA removing houses it bought within project area.
2013: Downer adds second construction crew as 20 full-time workers develop the Caversham side of the highway.
2014: Hole the size of a double garage found underneath highway development, about 5m under the surface.
January 2015: NZTA forced to redesign embankments and foundations for new bridge at Lookout Point as inactive fault line and soft soil force $3.5m budget increase.
November 2015: $45m project completed
