8 Jul 2022

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Motorists will be able to use Dyers Pass Road from midnight on the three nights next week that the Lyttelton road tunnel will be closed for maintenance.

Contractors are due to start work on Sunday night installing more safety barriers along Dyers Pass Road. To allow them to work safely Christchurch City Council was planning to close Dyers Pass Road from Sunday to Friday between 7.30pm and 6am.

However, the Council has revised its plans to work in with tunnel closures planned by Waka Kotahi  on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights next week.  

Dyers Pass Road will close as planned from 7.30pm until midnight. It will then re-open, with either manual stop/go or traffic signals to allow traffic to pass through the work area, which will be down to one lane.

Waka Kotahi will close the road tunnel from midnight to 5am on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week so it can undertake essential tunnel deluge testing. The tunnel will open to traffic for 10 minutes on the hour at 1am, 2am, 3am and 4am for all three closures. Outside of those times, only emergency vehicles will be allowed access. You can read more about the tunnel closures here.

“On three nights that the tunnel will be closed between midnight and 5am, we will keep Dyers Pass Road open to traffic,’’ says Council Transport Planning and Delivery Manager Jacob Bradbury.

“However, the road will be reduced to one-lane and the contractor will be using stop/go signs or traffic signals to control traffic on the road so if you do travel over Dyers Pass Road you may encounter some delays.’’

Once Waka Kotahi has finished the work it needs to do in Lyttelton tunnel, the night-time closures of Dyers Pass Road will resume. Only emergency services vehicles will be allowed through the closures.

The safety improvement work along Dyers Pass Road is due to be completed in December 2022.

Find out more about the Dyers Pass Road work.