High volumes of traffic driving through Levin. It was hoped the Ōtaki to Levin expressway would alleviate this problem.

The future of a proposed expressway between Ōtaki and Levin, north of Wellington, appears more uncertain after the New Zealand Transport Agency said the potentially billion-dollar project was being "re-evaluated".

Residents of about 400 houses affected by the nine routes options shortlisted for the proposed expressway earlier this year had been told a final route would be chosen by June.

But the agency now says it will be months before it can confirm the route, leaving hundreds of homeowners in limbo.

NZTA The final routes offered as options for the Ōtaki to North of Levin expressway. All northern and southern options run east of the current SH1. Any southern option could link with any northern option.

Emma Speight, the agency's director of regional relationships, said the Ōtaki to Levin project needed "re-evaluation" to better align with the new Labour-led Government's transport policy.

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"Once it has been re-evaluated, it will be reconsidered," she said.

JOEL MAXWELL/STUFF A shot from Carolyn Leslie's drive way showing the potential route of one of the options for the Ōtaki to north of Levin expressway, running through the middle of the foothills in the distance, across the valley and river and up to the neighbouring properties to the left of this driveway.

Designed to replace an area of state highway dubbed a "killing field" by a former coroner, the Ōtaki to Levin expressway was green-lit when National was in power.

The four-lane road, which could cost anywhere between $690 million and $1.06 billion, was intended to bypass Levin.

But uncertainty has swirled around the project since April when the Government announced new priorities for land transport.

MAARTEN HOLL/STUFF Ōtaki MP Nathan Guy believes the proposed Ōtaki to Levin expressway will end up on the scrap heap.

It proposed taking money away from the previous Government's Roads of National Significance projects – which saw the birth of the Kāpiti expressway and Transmission Gully motorway – to focus on rail projects and road safety.

Speight said that overarching strategy strongly influenced which of the agency's projects and programmes of work would progress and when.

"We acknowledge the frustration this may result in for communities and people affected by this project."

BRIAR HUBBARD/STUFF Transport Minister Phil Twyford says any suggestion that the Ōtaki to Levin expressway has been scrapped is just scaremongering.

Local councils now had to align their projects to the new Government policy and submit them to the Transport Agency by the end of August to be eligible for taxpayer funding, she said.

One affected homeowner, who did not want to be named, said the continuing uncertainty over the expressway's exact route was frustrating for her community.

"People can't sell or plan anything to do with their houses. People don't even know if they should put a wood burner in," she said.

"People want to know what the plan is so they can get on with their lives."

Since 2013, there have been 11 deaths and 43 serious injuries along the sections of SH1 and SH57, which the expressway would replace as the main route through the area.

In March, former coroner Philip Comber said that, over the past 25 years, the roads had become "a killing field marked like a battlefield with white crosses".

Only a four-lane road with a median barrier could remove the danger of the existing road, he said.

Ōtaki MP Nathan Guy said he feared the proposed expressway had been scrapped.

"My concern has always been that the money has been raided from the Roads of National Significance projects and tipped into Auckland," he said.

"There's a hell of a lot of people thinking that; that we're not going to get it funded. It's not fair, and causing a huge amount of anxiety."

When Transmission Gully and the northern extension to the Kāpiti expressway, between Peka Peka and ​Ōtaki, both open in 2020, Levin would become the worst chokepoint in the lower North Island, Guy said.

Transport Minister Phil Twyford said decisions on the Ōtaki to Levin project were made by the Transport Agency's board, at arm's length from the Government .

"I am advised that decisions on a preferred route are yet to be made. Nathan Guy is simply scaremongering to suggest this project has been scrapped."

Horowhenua Mayor Michael Feyen​ said he felt confident something would be done to ease Levin's congestion, but he did not know when that might happen.

"My biggest concern is for the people who don't know one way or another if they're going to be affected."