"I use the road daily to commute to work between the Wairarapa and the Hutt Valley. Due to the nature of my work and variable times, public transport is not very feasible in its current format. The existing road has not seen any significant improvements in many decades (the Muldoon's Corner realignment in ~2010 would be the last one and that can hardly be called a substantive improvement since it is steep and comprises an almost unusable passing bay). The current alignment of the road barely copes with the climate that impacts it - there have been 2 substantive slips in the last 2 years that have necessitated significant and lengthy closures and all to reinstate something closely to what it was rather than improve it. In some places, culverts are held up by sand-bags and road edges fortified with little more that Warratah stakes and fence palings - one slope even has retaining walling comprised of 44 gallon drums that are almost rusted out - Number-8 wire ingenuity is one thing but this is hardly appropriate engineering for a state highway let alone appropriate for a lesser, minor road!

The bulk of the road is narrow, has no shoulders or stopping areas for emergencies and has little room for error. The majority of the trucks that use it comprise double-trailered units that frequently cross over the centre line to negotiate many bends - not because the drivers are careless, simply because the vehicles can't stay within their own narrow lane due to their length and configuration vs that of the bends being negotiated. Two big trucks often meet on corners and get temporarily stuck and holding up traffic (sometimes for hours) until they can 'disentangle'. It is only a matter of time before a serious collision on a tight bend results in loss of life. The road is no longer fit for purpose for the amount and type of traffic that now uses it. The inappropriateness of it will only become compounded as more and more logging trucks use the road as more plantation forest in the region matures, gets harvested and is shipped by road to the Port of Wellington.

It's astounding to read that a small town such as Hope near Nelson can get a bypass registered as a Road of National Significance and yet a vital connector that connects Greater Wellington (comprising some 450,000 people) with another 50,000 people in the Wairarapa can't even register as a road of regional significance let alone a national one. Perversely, the Manawatu and southern Hawkes Bay will soon be connected by a dual carriageway with median divider and yet the Remutaka Hill Road will remain little changed from what it was when the WW1 soldiers marched over it in 2014-18 (save for a slap of asphalt and a bit of armco barrier). Where have our Remutaka and Wairarapa MPs been all this time? Clearly sleeping on the job and not advocating for better infrastructure for the Hutt and the Wairarapa!"