Latest news with #LandTransportRule:SettingofSpeedLimits2024
Otago Daily Times
26-05-2025
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Public to get another say on stadium speed limit changes
One New Zealand Stadium is due to open in April 2026. Photo: Christchurch City Council A new Government rule preventing 30km/h speed limits in urban areas means residents will be consulted again over the proposed changes to streets around Christchurch's new central city stadium. Christchurch City Council is reconsulting on the speed limit changes around One New Zealand Stadium at Te Kaha until Wednesday, July 9. A range of new speed limits were due to come into effect within the next few months, when the water and roading upgrades around the stadium were completed. However, the Government's new Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2024, which came into force after the project was approved by the city council, does not allow changes approved under the previous rule to go ahead. So new speed limits are being proposed, which comply with the updated rule. These are: Street Speed limits approved under old Rule Speed limits proposed under new Rule Madras Street (Moorhouse to Hereford) 30 km/h 40 km/h Tuam Street (Madras to Fitzgerald) 30 km/h 40 km/h Lichfield Street (Barbadoes to Fitzgerald) 30 km/h 40 km/h Duke Street (Tuam to Lichfield) 30 km/h 40 km/h Hereford Street (across Latimer Square) 30 km/h 40 km/h St Asaph Street (Ferry to Madras) 30 km/h 40 km/h Lichfield Street (Madras to Manchester) 10km/h 10km/h As speed limits of 30km/h are not allowed on urban streets under the new rule, the city council is proposing to change the speeds to 40km/h around the new stadium. A city council spokesperson said Lichfield St, from Madras to Manchester Sts, is proposed to remain at the 10km/h speed limit previously approved. This section of Lichfield St is classed as a civic space, like the area outside Te Pae Convention Centre. Image: Christchurch City Council The tram, vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians will share this newly redeveloped area, so a slower speed will help keep everyone safe, particularly when large events are on, the spokesperson said. "A speed change from 50km/h to 40km/h on a section of Barbadoes Street between Hereford Street and Tuam Street is also being considered, so all the speeds around the stadium are uniform. This change was to be adjusted under the Safer Speeds Plan, which is also affected by the new rule. "The Government's new rule also requires the council to reverse permanent speed limit reductions on seven specified roads by 1 July 2025. "Variable speed limits of 30km/h outside schools must also be implemented before 1 July 2026, under the rule."
Otago Daily Times
10-05-2025
- Automotive
- Otago Daily Times
Changes to speed limits near schools
PHOTO: RNZ The Waitaki District Council has been implementing speed limit changes around some rural schools and roads in the district. The changes, which began last Monday, are being made due to the government's new Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2024. This directs the council to implement 30kmh variable (time-limited) speed restrictions around nine rural schools in the Waitaki District: Maheno, Totara, Kakanui, Papakaio, Waitaki Valley, Hampden, Ōmārama, Macraes Moonlight and Duntroon. This will change the existing 30kmh permanent speed limits to apply at school pick-up and drop off times only. "Schools have been contacted to determine these time periods, and additional signage will be placed before July 2025 to inform drivers," a statement from Waitaki District Council said. The council will also be reversing the permanent speed limits on Weston Rd and Saleyard Rds to 70 kmh, from their 60 kmh setting. "This is due to the government directing roading authorities to reverse some speed limits put in place since January 1, 2020."
The Spinoff
21-04-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
‘I'm worried some kid is gonna die': Auckland suburb pushing back on speed limit reversals
Residents of a seaside suburb in Auckland have been campaigning to reverse the reversal of speed limit reductions on their main road, for fear the changes may end in a fatality. The Twin Coast Discovery Highway passes through a number of suburbs on the Hibiscus Coast. Like all major roads, the speed limit changes as it passes through residential areas. In beachside Ōrewa, it's set at 60km/h. Slightly further north on the rural stretch leading into Waiwera, it's also 60km/h. But between the two sits the small suburb of Hatfields Beach, where the highway winds past residential streets. The speed limit there? As of late March, 70km/h. In line with the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2024, by July 1, road controlling authorities are required to reverse 'blanket' speed limit reductions imposed by the Labour government in 2020. As an urban connector road, the speed limit for Twin Coast Discovery Highway, which runs through the Hibiscus Coast, can be set between 50-80km/h. Alternative speed limits can be considered for roads adjacent to a beach with public access (at 10-60km/h), or urban streets with 'significant levels of pedestrian and/or cycling activity' (set at 40km/h). Under the old regime, the speed limit for the Hatfields Beach section of the Twin Coast Discovery Highway was reduced from a 70km speed limit to 60km in June 2020, then further reduced to 50km in May 2023. But in late March this year, the speed limit on the road was bumped back up to 70km/h. Though the speed limit reversals have only been in effect in Hatfields Beach for a month, its residents say they have sent numerous complaints to transport minister Chris Bishop, Auckland Transport (AT), the police and their local MP, Mark Mitchell. They're concerned the new limits jeopardise the community's safety and defy sense given the more rural road next door to the town requires commuters to drive more slowly. They say these concerns have largely gone nowhere. Kelly Paddison, who has lived in the area with her family for nearly 20 years, says it became 'safer to move around the neighbourhood' when the speed limits were lowered, and the community has grown accustomed to a slow-and-steady way of life on the road. Now, she's worried those 'hooning' through the street will bring accidents in their wake. There was significant congestion along the road years ago, Paddison said, when it was still a part of State Highway 1 – but since the Johnstones Hill Tunnels were opened in 2009 to extend the highway, this has significantly lessened any gridlock. However, the Twin Coast Discovery Highway is still an option for those who don't want to foot a toll road fee. 'I think what's most important to us is that we're feeling lost in the bureaucracy of it all,' Paddison says. She says complaints to Auckland Transport, which formally opposed the reversals, returned 'it's just the rules' and 'our hands are tied' responses, while emails to Bishop and Mitchell haven't returned anything at all. Mum of four school-aged children Jasmin Tapp, a Hatfields Beach local for 10 years, shares Paddison's safety concerns, saying she and other families often walk the main road and watch drivers 'get nervous' as they realise there are no pathways for whānau to cross. There is one pedestrian crossing in the area, but many opt to try their luck with a quick dash across the road to reach the other side, rather than looping back to the crossing. Tapp also takes issue with the cost of the speed limit changes in Auckland, which AT has estimated at $8.8m, with central government likely to contribute just over half. 'We have a government where they're making job cuts here, there and everywhere because they're trying to get rid of unnecessary spending,' Tapp says. 'They charge a fortune for the signage and the safety [assessment] needed when [reversing the speed limits] … that just seems very counterintuitive to what this government's goal is.' The Land Transport Rule was signed by former transport minister Simeon Brown in September 2024 – his National Party colleague Chris Bishop picked up the portfolio in a January caucus reshuffle. Bishop told The Spinoff that while National is committed to reversing speed limit reduction, a relevant road controlling authority can undertake a 'speed review'. 'Road Controlling Authority (RCA), such as councils, can initiate new speed reviews for roads subject to reversal, provided the process meets the requirements of the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2024 (the Rule),' the minister said in an emailed response to The Spinoff. For that reason, the decision in this instance is a matter for Auckland Council and Auckland Transport, said Bishop. AT did not respond to a request for comment from The Spinoff in time for publication. However, it is understood that the agency must first roll out all the speed limit reversals in Auckland – for which there is a deadline of July 1 – before it considers reviews. Local Mike Anderson says it wouldn't be possible to hit 70km/h if you were trying to drive down the road safely – it has too many bends, there are too many residential roads and too many children attempting to cross it to be mindful of. 'If you're doing 70 down there, you're an absolute jerk, to be honest.' Anderson fears the worst. 'I'm just worried some kids are going to get killed in that time,' he says. 'It's just so frustrating, because everyone knows it's ridiculous … What I don't understand is why Auckland Transport have thrown their hands up.' Anderson, Tapp and Paddison all believe their community is, for the most part, firmly against the speed limit reversals. However, the reversals do have a fan in Geoff Upson, a self-described road safety campaigner and member of the Rodney Local Board, who says he has spoken to Hatfields Beach residents who are happy with the changes. Upson says 'upset people have been the vocal minority' in the speed limits debate, and that returning the road to its 50km/h limit wouldn't necessarily mean that the 'risk goes away'. The new setting of 70km/h is a 'very comfortable' limit for the road, he says, and a generation of Aucklanders are used to driving at the speed on the road given it was once a part of State Highway 1. The real problem, Upson reckons, is that the 70km/h limit ends once you pass Hatfield Beach to enter Waiwera – it's a more rural section of the road, but as it is not an urban connector by Auckland Transport's definition, the limit cannot be lifted. Upson says the frustration with how speed limits have been implemented around the city rests with the fact that Auckland Transport opted to make decisions about the limits while sitting in their offices, rather than going out and inspecting the roads. Hatfields Beach isn't the only neighbourhood in Aotearoa where residents are trying to fight speed limit reversals. In Wellington's Berhampore, locals have been campaigning against the speed limit reversals that have seen some streets rise from 30km/h to 50km/h – their local MP, Julie-Anne Genter, had penned an open letter to Bishop, who said the Green Party MP's feedback was better placed with Wellington Council and the New Zealand Transport Agency. Communities in areas including Nelson, Horowhenua, New Plymouth and Gisborne are also making their opposition heard, as well as school principals across Auckland. Whether they will have any success remains to be seen. In April, Wellington High Court's Justice Radich dismissed an interim order submitted by transport advocacy group Movement to halt all speed limit reversals until their judicial review into the policy is heard later this year.
