Road and land transport management
The Waikato District Council plans, builds and maintains local roads in our district's roading network, including its roadsides, bridges and footpaths. We are also involved in providing some funding for passenger and public transport within and linking to our district. Our district road network links to state highways passing through the district, including 1, 1B, 2, 21, 23, 26, 39 and 39A. However, we are not responsible for state highways - these are managed by the NZ Transport Agency.
Where possible we support cycling as part of our district road strategy and there are a number of cycleways already operating within the district including those along the Waikato River and alongside new sections of state highway including the Waikato Expressway (State Highway 1). In particular, the Te Awa Great New Zealand River Ride passes through our towns, Ngaruawahia and Huntly, and there are plans to link the cycleway through to the community of Tamahere, south of Hamilton.
We also consider how roads and land and property development impact on our roading network including in relation to our environment and services and facilities such as wastewater, stormwater and water, other infrastructure and engineering standards relevant to the Waikato district. These activities may involve resource consents and/or building consents.
Our road planning, design, building and maintenance work is paid for using a portion of ratepayer funding allocated towards this, plus funding from the National Land Transport Programme (NLTP). The NLTP also provides funding towards road safety in our district and the provision of public and passenger transport (with our regional bus services managed by the Waikato Regional Council). Our roading alliance (see 'our partners' below) is responsible for achieving the aims of our road strategy, projects and maintenance work.
Key links to strategies, plans, policies and bylaws relevant to managing roading and transport in our district are listed below. Key decisions are made by our roading planning team and the infrastructure committee meets regularly to discuss roads and transport as part of Council's wide-ranging infrastructure and facilities.
Strategies, plans, policies and bylaws
- Waikato District Plan. Section 8 of this Plan is aimed at enabling the development of the district's land transport network; accommodating adjoining land and property uses and development (which may require resource consent or building consent); and avoiding any adverse effects on our environment.
- See also our Procurement Strategy (for when we need to acquire property for roading purposes) and the following policies and bylaws.
- Road Naming Policy - find out about the naming of new or previously unnamed Public Roads; changing the name of an existing Public Road; and the naming of Private Roads in our district.
Polices and bylaws
Check out the following policies online:
Check out the following bylaws online:
Traffic monitoring
We also carry out regular traffic counts each financial year on selected roads - check out our latest traffic counts. This helps us when we're designing roads and sorting our priorities for road maintenance and improvements.
Regional and national planning
Check out the links below to find out how our land transport/road planning and activities fit in with regional and national land transport planning and requirements.
Road safety
We provide a range of road safety education programmes, events and projects. These are aligned with regional and national initiatives under the government's Safer Journeys Road Safety Strategy 2010-2020.
Our partners
In February 2015, we adopted a collaborative contracting model which brings together Council staff and main contractor, Downer NZ into one team or 'alliance' group. As well as dealing with the major projects and works required in the district, this model also allows us to engage smaller contractors as required to complete sections of work within larger projects or to carry out smaller projects as repair work as needed. Benefits from this alliance enable us to:
- provide a more efficient and effective service - more work for the same budget
- focus on need rather than size of job - small repairs and large projects are all considered when prioritising our work
- respond more flexibly and quickly when urgent repairs are needed.
Roads and our economy
Improving travel times and safety on our local roads and state highways in our district can contribute significantly to economic development in our area. Both our own local roading activities and the ongoing Waikato Expressway state highway project (which runs right through our district) aim to create a significant impact in this respect. We're well placed within the so-called 'golden triangle' of Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga. Already we are seeing increased interest from businesses and individuals wanting to relocate here as a result of the improved commuter and freight access provided by the Expressway and its linkages to our local roads and other main centres in the upper North Island.
See the Open Waikato website for a wealth of background information on the Waikato district, whether you're building or developing here; thinking of moving here; or wanting to know about businesses, industry, current projects and developments, case studies, demographics, land values, migration, population and other future projections for the district or a specific area within it.