Background 

Hutt City Council has adopted a Safety Improvement Programme to support the Government’s goal of reducing fatalities and hospitalisations from road accidents.This programme has involved installing and upgrading barriers on Wainuiomata Hill Road and parts of Eastern Hutt Road in the last two years.
Their most recent upgrade, on Eastern Hutt Road - north of Stokes Valley, is a central median barrier addition to a portion of the 2 lane, 80kph speed limit, major district distributor road. This particular project, whilst funded by the Council’s programme, was also subsidised by LTNZ under the Minor Safety Works Programme. 

The Project 

Due to the narrowness of this portion of road, wire rope was the only feasible option. A further critical consideration was a strategic medium pressure gas main running beneath the road.  

CSP Pacific’s Safence™ was chosen over other wire rope alternatives because of its shallow footing requirements. Safence™ standard footings are 650mm deep as opposed to the 900mm standard for other wire rope brands (although other brands could have altered their footings to suit).  This ensured the project would not interfere with the gas main below and enabled faster installation.  “If we’d used another product it would have taken longer – we would have been closer to the main and would need to be more careful” said Tim McCombe, Project Manager for Fulton Hogan.  

A further advantage of the Safence™ wire rope system is the ease with which it can be “dropped” for vehicles to cross over in the case of emergencies or road works. And, according to Simon Bird, Project Engineer from GHD, “from an aesthetics point of view a wire median is less obtrusive when you’re driving.”

The final result is an 870m Safence™ median barrier between the two opposing lanes – a first for GHD with a local authority in New Zealand. The project was installed by Fulton Hogan, Wellington, with CSP Pacific undertaking the tensioning of the wire rope after installation. 
 
Simon was impressed with the finished project, which ran for a month from start to finish.  “We commend Fulton Hogan on the job they’ve done. The project had a tight timeframe and they still managed to complete it ahead of time. The job was very tidy with no remedial work required. And CSP Pacific has supplied a good quality product and done a good job of getting all the materials supplied when they were needed.” 
 
CSP Pacific also supplied the 12g guardrail and an ET2000 end terminal for a short section of barrier on the side of the road. 

“We commend Fulton Hogan on the job they’ve done.   The project had a tight timeframe and they still managed to complete it ahead of time. The job was very tidy with no remedial work required. And CSP Pacific has supplied a good quality product and done a good job of getting all the materials supplied when they were needed.”

Simon Bird, Project Engineer, GHD Lower Hutt