How many people have been killed or seriously injured because of a myopic focus on over-scoped highways?
This isn’t a rhetorical question.
The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) – the name of which is a political slogan – are a number of State Highway projects first proposed in 2009, by then National Party Minister of Transport Steven Joyce.
Joyce identified the first seven RoNS as:
- Puhoi to Wellsford – SH1
- Completion of the Auckland Western Ring Route – SH20/16/18
- Auckland Victoria Park bottleneck – SH1
- Waikato Expressway – SH1
- Tauranga Eastern Corridor – SH2
- Wellington Northern Corridor (Levin to Wellington) – SH1
- Christchurch motorway projects
They have largely been scoped as four-lane dual carriageway expressways. The National Party has expanded on this initial list in subsequent elections with additional projects they’ve also dubbed “Roads of National Significance”.
As of 2026, while some of the proposed RoNS have been constructed, many have not – including the Warkworth to Wellsford (now to Te Hana) section of the Puhoi to Wellsford RoNS.
Meanwhile, what the RoNS have done is warp the transport funding landscape for 17 years, sucking up billions into progressing large four lane expressways, and leading to the bankrupting of the National Land Transport Fund.
As another consequence, the singular focus on RoNS has mean countless, cheap, normal-sized improvements have been delayed, cancelled, or not even looked at, because of the fantasy pushed by politicians, lobby groups, and NZTA, that these large projects were going to happen in any reasonable amount of time.
You just have to look at the claims right back in 2009, to see the fantastical thinking on display. Joyce said these RoNS were “seven of our most essential routes as a country, that require work to reduce congestion, improve safety and support economic growth.” (Emphasis added)
Essential to improving safety. That means urgent.
So how does that urgency actually play out, on one of these so-called essential projects?
For this, let’s take a closer look at the Puhoi to Wellsford corridor, otherwise dubbed the “Holiday Highway”.
[Note: I will be referring to it as the “Puhoi to Te Hana corridor” throughout the rest of this post, as in the current plan it extends to Te Hana.]
The Road Toll of Puhoi to Te Hana
Safety has long been a serious concern between Puhoi and Te Hana.
From 2000 to 2008, 48 people were killed and 155 people were seriously injured on SH1 between Puhoi and Te Hana. That’s an average of 5-6 deaths a year, and seventeen life-changing injuries.
Way back in 2010, The Auckland Regional Council (ARC) received information from advocates about Puhoi to Wellsford, calling for smaller, cheaper, and quicker to deliver solutions. The ARC supported this call, saying:
“The safety record on State Highway 1, between Puhoi and Wellsford, is tragic and costly with lives lost, harm done and delays encountered. Safety should be the most significant consideration in the NZTA’s planning,” says Councillor Christine Rose, chair of the committee.
Despite this unanimity on the urgency of safety improvements, over the next two years (2010 to 2012) under the then National-led government, NZTA pushed forward instead on planning the Puhoi to Te Hana RoNS project, a four-lane dual-carriage expressway, rather than more immediately deliverable smaller scale safety improvements.
From 2009 to 2012, 17 people were killed, and 52 people seriously injured on State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Te Hana.
Source: NZTA
This would not happen.
Meanwhile, in 2014, a solution to the bottleneck on the notorious Hill Street Intersection, which causes significant congestion on the route, would be delayed by NZTA, who claimed nothing could be done until the four-lane expressway was finished between Puhoi and Warkworth.
There was one positive exception to the ongoing delay in delivering safety on this stretch. Between 2009-2015, there was a notable reduction in Deaths and Serious Injuries (DSI) on the notorious Dome Valley section of State Highway 1. This was because NZTA has installed chip seal to reduce skidding, and in 2009 lowered the speed limit from 100km/h to 80km/h. However, the road as a whole remained dangerous, as it lacked significant safety measures, such as median barriers.
Early works on Puhoi to Warkworth finally began in 2016 – seven years after Joyce had first announced the Roads of National Significance.
From 2013 to 2016, 11 people were killed, and 45 people were seriously injured, on State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Te Hana.
Then-Minister of Transport Simon Bridges, then-Prime Minister Bill English, and former Minister of Transport Steven Joyce, 2017 Photo / Mark Mitchell
In 2017, main construction would finally begin on the Puhoi to Warkworth section of SH1, eight years after Joyce’s original announcement.
Meanwhile, Warkworth to Te Hana section was mired in ongoing geotechnical issues, with NZTA only announcing an indicative route. (At the time, Greater Auckland called the project a “boondoggle”).
In April 2017, after a two-car crash claimed yet another life in Dome Valley (closing the road for hours), NZTA announced they were looking to install safety barriers and widen shoulders, where possible.
2017 also saw the political winds change, with the election of a new Labour-led government.
In 2018, the new government would launch a review of the Roads of National Significance, and also looked to progress smaller scale targeted improvements, including in the Dome Valley.
In 2019, construction would begin on these smaller scale safety improvements in the Dome Valley.
Meanwhile, construction continued on the Puhoi to Warkworth section of SH1.
From 2017 to 2020, 8 people were killed, and 54 were seriously injured, on State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Te Hana.
Despite the government looking to review whether these RoNS were even good value for money let alone the best plan, NZTA would continue work on progressing a four-lane expressway for Warkworth to Te Hana, and in 2020 they began the process to lodge consent.
NZTA predicted it would cost $87million to secure properties on this route, saying that construction was not expected to start until 2030, and claiming it would take 5-7 years to build.
Enter 2020, which saw many construction projects delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout, work was continuing on the Puhoi to Warkworth section, and the SH1 Dome Valley safety improvements.
Both of these projects would be completed in 2023.
From 2021 to 2023, 8 people were killed, and 26 were seriously injured, on State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Te Hana.
In June 2023, the Puhoi to Warkworth expressway officially opened – seven years since early works got under way in 2016, and 14 years since Steven Joyce’s 2009 announcement. The project came in at $880 million for 18.5km, or $47,570,000 per km.
As far as I’ve found, there has been no significant works on the old State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Warkworth since the 2009 announcement.
From 2009 to 2023, 18 people were killed, and 59 people were seriously injured, on State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Warkworth.
The SH1 Dome Valley safety improvements took four years after construction began in 2019. The project cost $80m for 15km of improvements, or $5,330,000 per km.
From 2009 to 2023, 26 people were killed, and 118 people were seriously injured, on State Highway 1 between Warkworth and Te Hana.
In total, from 2009 to 2023, 44 people were killed, and 177 people were seriously injured, on State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Te Hana.
The return of the RoNS Doctrine
The end of 2023 would see a new National-led government incoming, with Simeon Brown as Minister of Transport. Brown continued to push for the Roads of National Significance, and in his 2024 Government Policy (GPS) for Land Transport mandated that any RoNS had to be four-lane dual-carriage expressways.
That same GPS would suck billions of dollars away from multiple smaller-sized road projects, safety projects, walking and cycling projects, and public transport, pouring it into the RoNS and State Highway budget instead.
As a direct result of Simeon Brown’s GPS, NZTA did not fund the long-awaited community-led improvements to the Hill Street intersection in Warkworth, which would have cost $19.1million (50% of which was funded from Auckland Council). Why? Because the design included – with community support – raised crossings and separated cycleways.
This was a decade after the previous proposed improvements to this area were scrapped by NZTA, who claimed at the time that Puhoi to Warkworth needed to be built first.
Sharon Murdoch cartoon 2024 Simeon Brown Transport Minister
As of 2026, Warkworth to Te Hana – the most progressed of the current crop of RoNS – has not yet been publicly confirmed as going ahead, but indications are that the government intends to sign a Public-Private Partnership by July 2026. (Those expressed intentions pre-date the current fuel crisis, however).
NZTA’s current plan consists of 26km of four-lane dual-carriageway, essentially duplicating the route of the current SH1, resulting in 6 total road lanes – a tripling of capacity along this stretch.
And yet the traffic volumes on this route are nowhere near meeting the threshold specified in NZTA’s own Detailed Business Case, that would justify building this level of capacity.
The projected cost for the Warkworth to Te Hana section is in the realm of $3.5-4 billion dollars, which works out to between $135,000,000 to $154,000,000 per km.
Of course, as a Public-Private Partnership, the overall cost will likely be higher, as debt will be sourced by private entities in the private market, which has higher borrowing costs than government, and a premium will be paid to the private entities through annual unitary charges over decades.
Moreover, Warkworth to Te Hana is a far more technically difficult undertaking than the Puhoi to Warkworth section, and would likely not finish construction until at least the mid 2030s.
In 2024 and 2025, 1 person was killed, and 14 were seriously injured on State Highway 1 between Warkworth and Te Hana.
This was lower than prior years, in large part due to the lower-cost normal-sized safety improvements to Dome Valley, as shown in the graph below.
Warkworth to Te Hana is also now the first section of the projected ‘Northern Expressway’, a $22,000,000,000 road corridor to Whangārei.
If this corridor is to be built as a four-lane dual carriageway, as planned and required by the 2024 GPS, then it will consume 10% of the whole country’s entire infrastructure spending for the next 25 years. That’s 10% of the funding we need to cover not just all of our roads, existing and new, but also schools, hospitals, and more – leaving aside the question of rebuilding existing infrastructure damaged by extreme weather and other natural disasters.
As of now, there are no set dates for starting the Northern Corridor, let alone finishing it. But billions are already being spent on planning, consenting, and acquiring tracts of land required to build it – along with the rest of the Roads of National Significance Programme.
This speculative “investment” has come at the expense of missed opportunities to deliver countless smaller, focused, normal-sized projects all over the country, effectively destroying the transport infrastructure pipeline while postponing “essential work” that would have gone a long way to “reduce congestion, improve safety and support economic growth” (to reinvoke the original RoNS rationale, as expressed in 2009)
In total, from 2009 to 2025, 46 people were killed, and 192 people were seriously injured on the original State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Te Hana.
I have the following questions for every politician, lobby group, decision maker in NZTA, and anyone else who has pushed this Road of National Significance juggernaut along, while missing multiple opportunities to deliver real and meaningful change:
- How many of the 177 people who were seriously injured and 44 people who died on the road from Puhoi and Te Hana between 2009 and 2023, might still be alive today, if you had progressed normal-sized safety works?
- If Warkworth to Te Hana goes ahead, how many more will be killed or seriously injured as we wait for the most expensive road New Zealand has ever built to be completed?
- How many people will still be killed or seriously injured on the old SH1 between Warkworth and Te Hana, especially as the new road will be tolled, which will logically divert significant amounts of traffic to the old route?
- How many people have been killed or seriously injured on the old SH1 between Puhoi and Warkworth, to date?
- How many will be killed and seriously injured on the rest of Northland’s roads, while billions are sucked towards this Road of National Significance?
- By the way, how much has it cost us so far, in the way of extended road closures to pick up the pieces up after every crash (and to repair damage from flooding, slips, etc)?
Finally. What is a better use of $4,000,000,000?
A gold-plated four-lane expressway between Warkworth and Te Hana?
Or right-sized Dome Valley-style safety improvements (and while we’re at it, maybe even a few more resilient bridges) across at least 750km of Northland’s roads?
Now apply that to every single other Road of National Significance being put forward as an “essential” solution to safety, and congestion, and economic growth.
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RONs are not want the country needs.
They are what the consultants, contractors, plant providers, and now, financiers want to build.
RONs require a huge displacement of labour in, at the beginning of each project and then out, at completion, causing disruption to hosting communities at both ends of the project cycle.
Spreading the same spend on smaller upgrade projects throughout the motu, whould also spread the benifits through out the motu. And spreading ongoing upgrade work on the roading network would provide greater employment stability in the industry, and local communities.
Remember that by voting for a new RONs in one area, you are voting for the retention of substandard and unsafe roads in the rest of the country. And depriving the rest of the country of stable local employment, and valuable local knowledge that continual local highway projects could provide.
There still is case for ongoing new route deviations but not at the frequency and scale of current RONs thinking.
Excellent post.
The RoNS kill even more people than the figures you’ve given:
They induce traffic. This induced traffic isn’t restricted to the RoNS; it starts and ends on local streets, and uses other regional roads. That traffic also kills people.
And the induced traffic increases transport emissions and climate change. This is killing people too.
Induced traffic translates to increased profitability for one very influential segment of our commerce.
Here though there is a divergence between profitability and productivity.
People saving a bit of time as part of their recreation, holiday making journeys etc, does little for productivity.
Roads of National (Party) Significance – RoNPS. You left out one important word.
Has anybody analysed the nationwide impact of Julie-Anne Genter’s $600m road safety programme? The Dome Valley measures seem like a good spend.
When the govt wax lyrical about ‘road safety’, what they really mean is the roads need to be safe for car users ONLY.