The Hawea Community Association (HCA) has called for the Queenstown Lakes District Council and NZTA to make safety improvements at the intersection, which it says has a series of shortcomings.
HCA chairman Dennis Hughes said following on-site meetings with council engineers, a summary of the intersection's main safety issues was sent to Hawea residents.
''Our primary concern is that the intersection operates at highway speed, so there are no enforced speed restrictions.''
There was also a limited line of sight for traffic approaching the intersection from Wanaka, it was ''chronically underlit'' at night and there were no provisions for pedestrians.
About 150 people in the Lake Hawea area provided feedback to the HCA, which subsequently produced a document detailing its concerns for the council and NZTA.
The report says near misses between fast-moving highway traffic from the West Coast and right-turning vehicles from Wanaka turning off the highway to Lake Hawea were common.
Calls by the HCA and the Wanaka Community Board for the intersection to be made safe had gone unheeded and requests for improved lighting and restricted speed zones ignored, the report adds.
However, Mr Hughes said the community felt their recent pitch for improvements had been listened to and he was ''relatively optimistic'' some action would be taken.
NZTA Otago senior network manager John Jarvis said the agency produced an initial safety assessment on the intersection in October and traffic-counting and speed surveys were done during the past couple of weeks.
''We'll analyse that data in the New Year and we will come up with some options and proposals to discuss with the council and the community.
''The community has indicated to us that they want it worked through properly and not necessarily rushed ... so we need to get all our ducks lined up so we can go to them with a proposal.''
While NZTA agreed there were improvements which could be made, there had been no crashes reported at the intersection in the past 10 years.
''That in itself is something we have to weigh up. That is not saying we won't do anything; it just means we've got other priorities. We've got three people killed down the road at another intersection [at Luggate] and we're reviewing that one, too,'' he said.
Significant growth in the Queenstown area meant increasingly busy intersections there also required regular reviews.
However, the NZTA was ''definitely'' taking the Hawea community's concerns seriously and ''the intention is to get on to it within the first quarter of the year''.
Some of the safety enhancement options which would be considered were reduced speed limits, adding ''threshold'' or ''welcome to'' signs alerting motorists to the township ahead, a review of the intersection's lighting and building a concrete splitter island.
The less-than-ideal position of the electronic highway information board near the intersection was also being reviewed. Its relocation was dependent on finding new technology enabling NZTA to continue to access it remotely.
Mr Jarvis noted the NZTA had been trying to remove the ''clutter'' of private signs at the intersection for years.
''In the past there's been reluctance from the community to remove those signs ... It was a battle to get buy-in on it. So things have changed I think with the community.''
