Waikato Expressway: Hamilton to Tauranga

As I hope most people know, If you are going on State Highway 1 from Auckland to Hamilton, You may notice that there is a lot of construction work going on between these two hubs.This is because State Highway 1 between Auckland and Hamilton has been classified as a Road of national significance (RONS). This means that hopefully by 2020, The road between Auckland and Hamilton would be all two lanes between both cities.This would mean that Auckland and Hamilton would be the first two major cities in New Zealand to be connected by a full on Expressway.

This is because all the Auckland, Waikato and Bay Of Plenty regions carry 56% of New Zealand's freight travels and movements. Which is an extremely big number.So that got me thinking, what if they extended the waikato expressway to Tauranga?

This would be very good for freight movements in Tauranga because Tauranga has been regarded to have one of the biggest ports in New Zealand (But of course, Auckland's still the biggest) and it would be much easier, faster and safer to have a smoother road to help transport these goods. i think the best option would only go from Hamilton to Tauranga. So there would be no Auckland to Tauranga Expressway.As this would be the much more costly and would take much longer to complete.Below is my idea of where the route could possibly go

I have split the expressway into 5 sections. And you may be able to see an exit at Piarere towards Tirau. For me this made sense because it had the opportunity to split lots of time off from the current State Highway 1 which currently takes a pointless undercut.I have also said that it would be more economical to upgrade Takitimu Road to be 2 lanes each way other then 1 lane each way. This would be good for in future where we don't have to pay more to do something as small as this. And it would be able to give enough space for Freight movers to drive and get to there destination more frequently. The hardest section would probably be the Kaimai Mamaku Section. this is because the terrain here is very steep which could mean that there has to be constant viaducts and maybe even tunnels. Which will not only be expensive but can be very difficult to build.

With this all explained i think that this would be very efficient and it would be great to see even if the government considers doing this. But in total, I think that with this expressway in action. It could potentially take up almost 20 minutes off the trip from Hamilton to Tauranga. which considering its current time of an hour and a half. Thats a good amount of time saved.

This is not a proposed option by the NZTA or the New Zealand Government. I made this just to show people what it could look like with an expressway in place. But don't take this post to believe that this is actually happening.This is just a proposal by me.