Precinct’s new 40kmh limit questioned

OAMARU

MOTORISTS in Harbour St, Oamaru, will soon need to reduce their speed, but some Waitaki district councillors argue a new reduced speed limit is not slow enough.

At a full meeting of the Waitaki District Council yesterday, councillors voted to reduce the Oamaru Victorian precinct street’s speed limit from 50kmh to 40kmh.

It is one of more than 60 speed limits set to be changed in the Waitaki district from November 1.

Councillor Jim Hopkins questioned why the speed limit in Harbour St could not be lowered further.

‘‘Firstly, it seems to me that’s too high in practice, given the speed that vehicles actually travel along that road,’’ Cr Hopkins said.

‘‘Secondly I recall that some time ago there was a submission made by a retailer on the street at the time, not there now, but he proposed if you like treating it as a service lane with a speed limit of 15kmh and I suppose I’m wondering if it’s not time to look at that as a speed limit on that street and why we haven’t considered that as part of this change.’’

Council assets group manager Neil Jorgensen said there had been robust discussions regarding further reductions, but the committee concluded viable.

Some submitters did not want new speed limit signs ‘‘that were not particularly heritagelooking’’ in Harbour St, Mr Jorgensen said.

‘‘It was suggested that it would be far better to control the speed in Harbour St using different matters,’’ he said.

Mayor Gary Kircher said it would be preferable to have a lower speed, but he believed the reasoning for 40kmh was sufficient.

‘‘There are other things we can do around managing traffic in there, with the placement of various elements of street furniture so to speak,’’ Mr Kircher said.

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‘‘It’s been done in the past and we should be looking at the opportunities to help separate traffic from pedestrians who do tend to naturally walk along the road than the footpath in that area.

‘‘There’s some work that can be done on that and I would certainly support that.’’

A section of Lake Ohau Rd will also have its speed limit reduced from 100kmh to 60kmh. Mr Jorgensen said it was originally proposed to change the limit to 80kmh, but the entry to Ohau Station resulted in it being decreased further.

The majority of the changes were community requests from up to five years ago.