NZTA announced the underpass will be retained. Bayfair Underpass Alliance has been successful. A win/win for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.

9 APRIL 2020
Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency is pleased to confirm the inclusion of an underpass for pedestrians and cyclists as part of the Bay Link project. Thorough technical investigations were undertaken to ensure an underpass could be included at this stage of construction and that additional funding could be secured.
The underpass has been costed at $26 million and this funding has been made available. We recognise the importance the community places on a crossing under the state highway and have strived to achieve this.
In October 2019, Waka Kotahi committed to looking at two options; retaining and extending the existing underpass (Option 5) or constructing a pedestrian and cycling overbridge approximately 700m from the Bayfair roundabout (Option 14).
The project team, made up of Waka Kotahi, Beca, Tonkin and Taylor and CPB Contractors, alongside Tauranga City Council, has worked tirelessly over the past four and a half months to achieve the
result the community was after. The investigation showed retaining the existing underpass is not possible. The existing structure will need to be demolished and a new one built.
The Bayfair flyover will require an additional bridge span, taking it from a three-span to a four-span bridge. The underpass will be made up of two separate, specially strengthened box culverts linked by an open-air trench under the new bridge span, north of the Bayfair roundabout. The height and width of the new underpass will be similar to the existing structure and the total length will be approximately 90 metres long.
Detailed design is underway. The existing underpass will need to close in the coming months and a second temporary signalised crossing on the Bayfair side will be made operational to facilitate construction of the new underpass. The full implication of how the construction programme will be affected and extended by the works is being considered. The underpass is recognised as a key link in Tauranga’s cycling network and is regularly used by residents and school children walking and cycling between Matapihi, Bayfair and Arataki.

12 Feb 2020

Letter to major parties NZTA, TCC, Ministry of Transport asking what is going on?

5 February 2020

Bayfair Underpass Alliance (BUA)

Attention: Hon. Phil Twyford - Minister of Transport

Tenby Powell - Mayor of Tauranga

Gary Webber - Mayor of Western BOP

Doug Leader - Chair of BOP Regional Council

Lyall Thurston - Chair of the Regional Council Transport Committee.

Sir Brian Roche - Chair NZTA

Re: Bayfair Underpass – Baylink Project

Dear Sirs,

Firstly, congratulations on the recent transport planning packages announced for Tauranga. We are very pleased to see that the government is making this significant investment in future road, rail, public transport and road safety for Tauranga roads and know these investments will benefit the whole Bay of Plenty region.

In spite of this welcome funding boost, another very large chunk of the Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty community is about to be inconvenienced forever because of poor transport planning. As you know, the BUA has been campaigning to keep an underpass at the Bayfair roundabout. This underpass is considered to be the only safe crossing option across State Highway 2 with separation for traffic and pedestrians. The time is fast approaching when a final
decision on retaining the underpass must be made and the decision makers at NZTA have gone very quiet.

There have been all types of promises and two meaningless workshops with NZTA. BUA was invited onto a committee to help design a new underpass but this committee has never met. We have recently received an email from NZTA stating that the existing underpass will close during construction. Our fear is that once the underpass is closed it will never reopen. As you know, NZTA is currently costing the underpass “Option5“ possibility presented at the first workshop - this process started in November 2019 and is still not complete (now into the third month). The longer the delay, the easier it is for NZTA to say that time has run out and no underpass is possible. The process is a travesty in community engagement.

It is not only pedestrians and cyclists who will be inconvenienced by the removal of the Bayfair Underpass. Truck and car traffic will also be chaotic and frustrated, with long delays at the roundabout. From NZTA’s Workshop 2, the traffic engineers anticipate that vehicle traffic from Matapihi will need to wait in excess of 8 minutes to cross the roundabout (at peak flows and with pedestrians crossing the roundabout with controlled signalisation).

The only practical approach at this intersection is modal separation with cyclists, mobility scooters and pedestrians using an underpass leaving the Bayfair roundabout and single lane flyover bridge exclusively for car/truck traffic. Cycling and e-biking are becoming viable transport alternatives for many commuters as the traffic in Tauranga slows due to congestion and there is an evident explosion in cyclist numbers. The Bayfair underpass serves the residents of Mt Maunganui & Papamoa and in the future - Te Tumu. These two communities that are experiencing massive housing growth are ideal
for cycling due to their flat geography and it is absurd that the need for safe cycling connections across SH2 at the critical Bayfair junction is being overlooked by NZTA in the face of this housing growth.

For your information, NZTA has now conceded that only 50% of the trucks coming from an easterly direction will use the single lane Bayfair flyover bridge, the other 50% will still need to drive through the roundabout. Here they will be forced to stop at the traffic signals for pedestrians and cyclists to cross. These timedelays for vehicles undermine one of the very reasons this project was given the go-ahead, this being travel time savings for vehicles going to the Port of Tauranga.

The community wants the underpass retained, this was very clear at our well attended public meetings that were also supported by Council candidates looking for (re)-election. Failure to include an underpass at theBayfair roundabout will be fateful for the success of the Baylink Project – something that the people and voters of Tauranga will be reminded of every day for years into the future, and it will be fateful for anything we hope to achieve regarding truly multi-modal transport in Tauranga.

How can we ever hope to achieve the government’s stated goals for better transport choices if our transport agency
is unwilling/unable to build a simple piece of cycling and walking infrastructure that the community of Tauranga is asking for that aligns perfectly with your vision?

We are asking the Mayors of our region to unite their voices in calling for the retention of an underpass at the Bayfair Roundabout and to hold NZTA to its commitment of engaging with the key stakeholder groups (and more importantly “its commitment to retain an underpass on the Baylink Project”).

Yours sincerely Philip Brown (Chairman - Bayfair Underpass Alliance) buatauranga@gmail.com

15 Nov 2019

After a meeting with NZTA, BUA and all other interested parties and consultants in the BECA offices in Tauranga, NZTA has decided to further investigate Option 5 for an underpass solution at the Bayfair Roundabout. This is not “set in concrete” but it is a good step forward. Details below. To read BOP Times article “NZTA does U turn on Underpass” click here

NZTA, the government agency building the new Baylink highway announced on July 9 2019 that it was not going to build a replacement underpass at the Bayfair roundabout when the existing underpass is demolished. This was a shock and unexpected , especially after NZTA had secured money in April 2019 for a new underpass. The Bayfair Underpass Alliance (BUA), an alliance of all interested groups, was formed to reverse this decision and we have the support of all major political parties, all but one of the mayoral candidiates but still the NZTA is ignoring our pleas. We are not giving up, on Sunday 22 August we held a protest at the site with over 1000 people present. Safety and pedestrian convenience is being ignored. The NZTA solution to crossing the road is to walk across the roundabout using pedestrian signals. If you want to do something please email Phil Twyford, the Transport Minister at phil.twyford@parliament.govt.nz and tell him to put the underpass back in the plans.

Below is a letter sent by BUA which summarises the situation

Dear Editor,

We believe any government project should result in betterment for the community. Here in Tauranga we have just the opposite, a community amenity is being removed and this will produce all kinds of safety issues.

There has been since 1999, a pedestrian/cyclist underpass from Bayfair to Matapihi under the 4 lane road leading to the Port of Tauranga. It is a major logging truck route and full of heavy trucks. The underpass is used by everyone, schoolchildren, the elderly, mobility scooters, cycle commuters to downtown Tauranga. It is the only safe crossing across the highway and provides complete separation between pedestrians and vehicles.

NZTA has decided to upgrade the highway in a project called Baylink. And now they are demolishing the underpass and not replacing it in 3 weeks time. This is a change of stance from last year when they announced they would build a replacement underpass. Then in July 2019 out of the blue, they announced the replacement underpass would be canned. They are not listening to any community concerns, just a done deal. The demolition is being driven from Minister Twyford’s desk. The reason given is too expensive. Not true, just inventive costings to stop a project. What price for an injury or death while crossing the road. We say, keep the existing underpass and extend it.

Now, all pedestrians and cyclists will need to cross 8 lanes of traffic and walk through a roundabout to get to the other side. We are very concerned for the safety of the schoolchildren, pedestrians and cyclist crossing the highway and also the delay to the traffic while the vehicles are stopped.

The existing underpass ticks all the boxes of the Labour transportation policies.

Common sense should be used here.

Regards,

Bayfair Underpass