People who travel south of Christchurch at night and overnight will need to build in some extra time with delays at the Selwyn River/ Waikirikiri Bridge from early May until the end of July.

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA), as part of its regular bridge maintenance, will be jacking bridge beams and repairing some joints/bearings from Monday night, 7 May through to 30 July. Deck joints and concrete will be repaired at the same time.

“People will have Stop /Go manual traffic operations from 7pm - 5am, Sunday to Friday managing single lanes,” says Tracy Bell, Network Manager, Structures for NZTA in Canterbury. 

“We will also need full bridge closures for around six nights, with 30-minute delays for all traffic at each end, between 10pm and 5am. These full closures will occur around every ten days on average across this time.

“Given this is SH1 we do expect some short-term queuing some evenings,” she says.

The work is scheduled from Tuesday, 7 May – Tuesday, 30 July and the full bridge closures with 30-minute delays will be advertised on electronic signs on the highway up to two days before they occur.