Richmond Bridge Upgrade: The Million-dollar Gridlock Question

Wednesday, 26 March 2025, 8:54 pm
Article: Max Frethey - Local Democracy Reporter

Tasman District Council is asking itself a million-dollar question ahead of a bridge upgrade on one of the region’s busiest roads: fork out for a temporary bypass or risk gridlock.

Work is expected to begin in May to replace a 14-metre bridge across Borck Creek on Richmond’s Lower Queen Street.

The upgraded bridge will be 48 metres long and will ensure stormwater can better escape into the Waimea Estuary in a flood event.

Lower Queen Street will be closed between the Arvida Lifestyle Village and McShane Road to enable the upgrade which was expected to take about 10 months.

A bypass through Berryfield Drive will be available, with heavy traffic rerouted via McShane Road, the Appleby Highway, and Gladstone Road.

But the council is yet to decide if it will also build a temporary bridge adjacent to the current bridge to keep the road open during construction.

Constructing the temporary bridge will add another $1 million to the cost of the project and extend the project out to about 14 months but render the detours unnecessary.

The entire project is budgeted to cost $11.5 million, including the $1m for the potential temporary bridge.

Any savings by not constructing the bridge won’t reduce rates but would result in less debt for the council.

The duration of the project and the cost of the temporary bridge have been revised down from 14-17 months and $1.4–1.8 million respectively since they were presented to the council earlier this month.

The temporary bridge would have to meet full road construction standards to cater to all users, including heavy vehicles.

An independent traffic assessment on the potential road closure noted “minimal impacts” on the wider traffic network and didn’t identify any “critical bottlenecks” with travel time estimated to increase by 30–40 seconds during peak hours.

However, the assessment also said that the Richmond road network’s level of service would degrade from D to E – just one step above F – and that was a concern for council staff.

“F is gridlock and no one’s going anywhere,” said the council’s transportation manager Jamie McPherson.

“E is very susceptible to being impacted … the traffic flow is unstable and a butterfly flaps its wing and it collapses.”

No matter what, Lower Queen Street will have to close for a week while communication lines and water pipes are relocated away from the road and trees are removed.

Council will be monitoring the town’s traffic flow during that closure to see if the traffic assessment was accurate.

The findings would then inform the elected members’ decision on whether it will build the bypass bridge or not.

The road will remain open during the construction of the bypass bridge before the existing bridge closes and traffic is diverted onto the temporary construction to enable the upgrade.

Headingly Lane will not be accessible via Lower Queen Street during the work, but will be connected by a temporary extension to Saltmarsh Lane.

Part of the project includes a cycleway under the bridge to link the Berryfields development to the coastal section of the Great Taste Trail – one of the country’s Ngā Haerenga Great Rides.

The work will not begin until the roadworks closing Wensley Road are complete.

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