Kapiti Expressway opened today 24/02/17- it is awesome!

[MD]

Before the Moderators move this to Rant or Rave this is a 'product review' from a Riders perspective and belongs in this category.

At 4am the sneaky buggers opened the $630m Expressway. I was sound asleep so missed the opportunity to be the first bike on it. I did a bike run this morning all the way north and then back to the southern QEII Park exit. Surprised there were no HP and it did enter my warped mind to be the first to do Her Majesty's imperial ton. Then I though I don't want to be the first person to lose their licence on the Expressway.

What I like is it's not one dead straight boring highway that it could have been made into. It snakes constantly through beautiful wetlands, farms, across the scenic Waikanae river and so on, you get the picture. As roads go it is an attractive bit of work. Quick hop now to the Waikanae golf course too.

The anti-wire rope barrier brigade will have a field day when they see it. Both shoulders and the medium barrier are miles of wire and I don't have a problem with that.

The cycle ways also look beaut and I will be out this weekend pounding the pedals to explore. Man am I pleased I moved north to Paraparaumu 2 years ago. Better climate and now even better cycle ways and the long awaited Expressway has come to fruition.

Well done Higgins and Goodmans and the rest of the construction crews.

[rustys]

Well done, woke up to see the traffic flowing along it this morning, ye'ha for Waikanae,:cool: and getting rid of the traffic congestion to Paraparaumu. Now can't wait for the next stage Transmission Gully.

[roogazza]

The cycle ways also look beaut and I will be out this weekend pounding the pedals to explore. Man am I pleased I moved north to Paraparaumu 2 years ago. Better climate and now even better cycle ways and the long awaited Expressway has come to fruition.


Way, way better climate huh MD, we moved another 30 or 40mins further north and the climate is better again mate. Hardly ever go to Wgton as its a waterbottle trip (aussie slang). Palmy has everything and a better place.
We'll see in time if the Police Dept can manage to block the fuckin bypass at the first sign of someone running up someones arse ?? :mellow:

[pete376403]

At $35 million / kilometer it SHOULD be fucking awesome. But all it does is move the bottleneck 18 km north. Otaki roundabout is still the chokepoint.

Good comment in Dompost this morning about the Govts obsession with "roads of national significance" justifying expenditure like this, regardless of the projected ROI. Why not Railways of national significance?

[MD]

I hear you Pete. Half the stuff in trucks could go by rail. Let us car/bikes enjoy or roads. How many bloody trucks are on our roads now compared to 20, 40 years ago.

Anyways I cycled the cycleway alongside the expressway this morning. 27 km round trip to Te Horo café and home. It is going to be a popular cycle track. Had a quick dip in the Waikanae river.

The cops were out in force today with what look liked zero tolerance. Heaps of Harleys riding up and down the Expressway. perfect for them I suppose, taps their bikes out at terminal velocity 104kpm, lots of people to pose in front of and no riding skill required.

Few pics. Too hard to spot but in three of these someone is getting a ticket.
pic 1. orange HP car bottom left.
Pic 2 a cop bike on far left shoulder just by the green sign.
pic 5 too hard to see but a white cop car is on far right hand side shoulder recovering cost of construction. Yesterday the Expressway cost $630m. Today thanks to the fun Police in the short time I was cycling net cost has been reduced to $629,999,400

[release_the_bees]

Looks like kilometres of cheese cutters. Good to see they've taken motorcycle safety into consideration!

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[Zedder]

Why not Railways of national significance?


That's a fair question. As I understand it, the difference is in the funding.

Rail projects are financed from the Consolidated Fund only and so "lose money" while roading has the benefit of revenue from RUC, fuel levies, local authority rates etc.

[MD]

Looks like kilometres of cheese cutters. Good to see they've taken motorcycle safety into consideration!



We are primarily a dairy producer after all.

[swbarnett]

roading has the benefit of revenue from RUC, fuel levies, local authority rates etc.
And straighter roads mean more ticket revenue.

[bogan]

Bit of a fucking mish mash of hot mix and 'standard' chip seal though. Given the amount they spend on artsy fences, retaining walls, bridges and their cladding, and the cycleway; I would have though going all hot mix would be a no brainer for future proofing...

It's still pretty good though, going to be mint when the other two SH1 upgrade stages are done.

[Moi]

Looking at the first photo, an observation: the width of the emergency shoulder seems a little narrow - the highway patrol car is parked at the end of an on-ramp, the policeman is standing beside the other car and he appears to be standing on the fog-line. Might be okay there but if that was you trying to change a flat tyre further along would you be happy with your behind quite that close to passing traffic?

[BMWST?]

coming back from Ohakea yesterday evenimg the traffic came to a stop at the top of the forest parks hill It was 1st gear from there to Otaki roundabout,immediately after the roundabout the traffic started to flow.There was a queue from Rahui Rd were there races there yesterday?.That intersection is a disgrace. SH1 is stopped by a local or two,then on the exit you often have queue s because of trafic lights.The ex[ressway is fine but the surfacing looks patchy ,on the main route the shoulders are very wide in some places

[Tazz]

Bit of a fucking mish mash of hot mix and 'standard' chip seal though. Given the amount they spend on artsy fences, retaining walls, bridges and their cladding, and the cycleway; I would have though going all hot mix would be a no brainer for future proofing...

It's still pretty good though, going to be mint when the other two SH1 upgrade stages are done.

Did the same shit for the southern motorway in Chch. Were resealing most of it again within a year :facepalm:

[bogan]

Did the same shit for the southern motorway in Chch. Were resealing most of it again within a year :facepalm:

Good business model for some though!

[Ulsterkiwi]

There was a queue from Rahui Rd were there races there yesterday?.


turn off SH1 at Manakau and you can take the back roads into Otaki past the race course. If you have no love of stop start its a lovely wee road, nice for a bit of a blat on the bike as well.

[Ulsterkiwi]

The wire rope barrier outrage is a bit of a snorefest really. Apart from one fatality which happened at speeds which made the item being crashed into irrelevant, nobody can actually point to a time when someone was cut like cheese.

[pete376403]

turn off SH1 at Manakau and you can take the back roads into Otaki past the race course. If you have no love of stop start its a lovely wee road, nice for a bit of a blat on the bike as well.
Still go to get back on to the main road to get across the river.

[Ulsterkiwi]

Still go to get back on to the main road to get across the river.

of course but its a more pleasant way to get to the actual choke point which is the roundabout on the north side. Stay in the queue if you prefer.

[jellywrestler]

The cops were out in force today

drove it twice over the weekend, set gps and it saved me six minutes, bottle neck at otaki the other side though....
one thing is it's such a good road it's easy to speed, my spped warning is my gps which is reliable and beeps at whatever i've set the margin, but it doesn't work on this road as the road doesn't exist in it's data, there is no applied speed limit to let the machine tell you you're over so just letting others who drive that way know...

[Ulsterkiwi]

I really wish that the typical kiwi driver would learn how to merge into free flowing traffic. What is so fucking difficult about moving from one lane to another in such a way that you do not impede the movement of others? Coming on at the Te Moana on ramp this morning for the first time, a loooooong merge lane with a clearly marked limit of 100kph (you know, the same as the damn road you are about to join) and there is a line of cars doing 60kph who just pull out in front of cars already on the expressway already at cruise speed (somewhere between 100 and 105kph) If you want to travel slower than traffic, fine! Just don't move across in front of traffic clearly moving faster than you are. Boy does that grind my gears....

[release_the_bees]

I really wish that the typical kiwi driver would learn how to merge into free flowing traffic. What is so fucking difficult about moving from one lane to another in such a way that you do not impede the movement of others? Coming on at the Te Moana on ramp this morning for the first time, a loooooong merge lane with a clearly marked limit of 100kph (you know, the same as the damn road you are about to join) and there is a line of cars doing 60kph who just pull out in front of cars already on the expressway already at cruise speed (somewhere between 100 and 105kph) If you want to travel slower than traffic, fine! Just don't move across in front of traffic clearly moving faster than you are. Boy does that grind my gears....
My pet peeve is closely related to this: drivers in a merge lane that have space to merge, but instead of merging into the gap, overtake the car in front of them. Then, at the end of the merge lane they either force their way in or come to a complete stop at the end of the merge lane.

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[MD]

but it doesn't work on this road as the road doesn't exist in it's data, there is no applied speed limit to let the machine...

Now that's an interesting technical point. So who is silly enough to test my theory. How can you get a speeding ticket on a road that doesn't have a name? The Expressway is now officially the state HW 1 and the old road is YET to be given a name as it is now a local regional road. NZTA is seeking community input for naming. So if you are caught doing 200kph on the old section, theoretical that road doesn't exist, so how can you be ticketed and how can a non existent road even have a speed limit?

[jellywrestler]

Now that's an interesting technical point. So who is silly enough to test my theory. How can you get a speeding ticket on a road that doesn't have a name? The Expressway is now officially the state HW 1 and the old road is YET to be given a name as it is now a local regional road. NZTA is seeking community input for naming. So if you are caught doing 200kph on the old section, theoretical that road doesn't exist, so how can you be ticketed and how can a non existent road even have a speed limit?

cunts probably use gps coordinates now.

[roogazza]

Finally got to drive the expressway saturday morn early in the Falcoon (like 7am !)..Initial thoughts were,jesus this could be a 130kph road.
I had the road safety device on and cruise set on 109kph, god it seemed slow !
arriving at Raumati I realised why I hadn't seen the truffle hunters (they were everywhere on the old road where it looked like a couple of little silver cars had had their rooves cut off). Bugger ,could have done 130 no problem ? :msn-wink:<_<

[jellywrestler]

Finally got to drive the expressway saturday morn early in the Falcoon (like 7am !)..Initial thoughts were,jesus this could be a 130kph road.
I had the road safety device on and cruise set on 109kph, god it seemed slow !
arriving at Raumati I realised why I hadn't seen the truffle hunters (they were everywhere on the old road where it looked like a couple of little silver cars had had their rooves cut off). Bugger ,could have done 130 no problem ? :msn-wink:<_<

what is thius raod safety device you talk of, cruise control, have you ever had it calibrated, a lot of people set theirs at that and think for some reason their speedo is 100% accurate even s the tyres wear out and the readings vary over tyre life without other factors.

[roogazza]

what is thius raod safety device you talk of, cruise control, have you ever had it calibrated, a lot of people set theirs at that and think for some reason their speedo is 100% accurate even s the tyres wear out and the readings vary over tyre life without other factors.

Valentine ,V1 bud haha . Cruise must be pretty much on it ? cos the car is about 5 years old now and the 'boys' don't bother me ? As the rubber wears I guess gearing goes down too huh.

I was lucky this morning tho,on the bike early, up 57 and the first sun blinded me,put my hand up to see where I was going and bingo along comes a HW patrol. :clap: (don't use the V1 on the bike!).

[ElCoyote]

Now that's an interesting technical point. So who is silly enough to test my theory. How can you get a speeding ticket on a road that doesn't have a name? The Expressway is now officially the state HW 1 and the old road is YET to be given a name as it is now a local regional road. NZTA is seeking community input for naming. So if you are caught doing 200kph on the old section, theoretical that road doesn't exist, so how can you be ticketed and how can a non existent road even have a speed limit?

Many years ago the Wellington Fuzz (Read Traffic Officer Banks) issued tickets for the stretch of road now known as Cobham Drive. Sadly for Mr. Banks it didn't have a name at that time and all tickets were withdrawn. You can bet that loophole is now well and truly closed. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$:scooter: