NZTA crews have been tackling a build-up of gravel on the roof of the highway rock-shelter that protects motorists from falling debris, and usually shunts it directly into the Otira Gorge below.
The overnight and stop-start road closures started more than two weeks ago when rocks began falling on to the highway from the sides of the shelter roof, following a big snow melt and heavy rain.
"People are not coming across to the Coast for the weekend because they can’t be sure of getting home on Sunday night, if they do the cycle trail."
Long queues of traffic were waiting every morning for the highway to reopen, Mr Cummings said.
"All the trucks are lined up at 7.30[am] ... there’s tankers and campervans and they’re all trying to pass ... someone’s going to get killed."
Council chairman Peter Haddock noted trucks were also having to go take the longer route to and from the West Coast, via the Lewis Pass.
The build-up of debris on the shelter roof suggested a lack of maintenance, he said.
He was to bring it up at a South Island Regional Transport Committee meeting this week.
Cr Andy Campbell said the last time the transport authority had dealt with a build-up of debris gravel on the rock shelter, it was cleared quickly.
"They hoisted a digger on to the roof and cleared it in two days, but this has been two weeks."
Waka Kotahi’s West Coast maintenance manager Moira Whinham confirmed it had dealt with the problem more quickly in 2021 when it sluiced off the debris by helicopter, but that had still involved daytime closures for five days.
This time crews had to deal with the snow-melt problems and wanted to do more of a preventive job, which was taking more time.
The job involved building a bund to funnel rocks straight over the shelter roof and stop them tracking to one side then dropping on to the highway from the roof edges.
A more frequent maintenance schedule would mean more inconvenience to the travelling public, and Waka Kotahi had to balance those factors, Ms Whinham said.
Doing the work now would minimise the risk of highway closures over the coming visitor season.
A remote-controlled excavator was craned on to the shelter roof on Tuesday to start clearing the gravel build-up.
"Anecdotally the crew tells us that about 80 vehicles are queued per hour, travelling in both directions, in daytimes, which are the kind of numbers we expect," Ms Whinham said.
"Weekends are open in the daytime and as soon as the team gets enough material cleared to make the route safe, we’ll reopen at nights — within the next week or so, we hope."
— LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
By Lois Williams
