More road-safety work in Cathedral Square to start on Monday

2 October 2003

Scheduled work to improve the safety of the road surface through Cathedral Square will begin on Monday (6 October) at 7am. The road will be closed at least until Wednesday.
If poor weather delays the work, it is possible the road will be closed until 6am on Saturday.

The contractor, Fulton Hogan, will replace the granite pavers on the Colombo Street roadway leading into the south of the square, between the Bank of New Zealand and the ANZ Bank.

During this time, all buses and other traffic will be diverted around the Square.

Background: At its December 2002 meeting the City Council considered a report on the Square which said work was needed on the road surface. It said there were two issues with the road’s existing granite surfacing -- the pavers’ slipperiness when wet and the ongoing maintenance costs and the structural failure of the road surface.

The Council voted to replace the granite pavers on all carriageways with asphalt and to have the work done progressively to match repair needs and the pavement-renewal budget. The first part of this work was carried out in May. Concrete pavers would be considered on those parts of the carriageways “where indicated for aesthetic design purposes and where traffic conditions permit”. The Council also instructed staff to recycle any undamaged pavers to be used when work is done on the Square’s north-west quadrant.

The full report from that meeting and the decisions can be found on the web, at www.ccc.govt.nz/Council/Proceedings/2002/December/StrategyFinance/CathedralSquare.pdf

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