Speed limits will ‘isolate Taranaki’
A potential speed limit drop to
80kmh on rural roads has been condemned by New Plymouth’s mayor.
The NZTA guidelines being looked at by the New Plymouth District Council recommend how to set speed limits to match the environment, with school zones going down to 30kmh, local residential streets
40kmh, and rural roads without additional engineering 80kmh.
On Thursday during a committee meeting councillors were told the proposed speeds were similar to the current average driving speeds.
But mayor Neil Holdom said the plan was a ‘‘hospital pass’’ from central government.
‘‘They put New Plymouth further away from our main centres of Auckland and Wellington,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s the risk that this is going to isolate Taranaki even further.’’
The Te Huinga Taumatua committee carried the motion to adopt the New Plymouth District Speed Management Guiding Principles, following the new speed management guidelines issued from the New Zealand Transport Agency and beginning a comprehensive, district-wide speed limit review, but Holdom abstained from the vote until it goes before the full council.
Holdom said a ‘‘bunch of bureaucrats in Wellington’’ were going to downscale the speed limits to tidy up structural issues with the roads. ‘‘If we put this thing in place, there’s going to be more road signs than you can shake a stick at... It’s going to baffle our drivers, it’s going to annoy people, particularly our rural residents, and the government have shoved it through to us.
‘‘I think more work needs to be done.’’
The report prepared by integrated transportation officer Liz Beck stated that ‘‘based on analysis of the current actual operating speeds on New Plymouth roads, the effects of reduced speed limits on journey times is likely to be low and typically of the order of less than two minutes’’.
‘‘On our urban roads speeds on arterial or collector roads are going to remain the same so there will be minimal if no impact on travel time.’’
Councillor Harry Duynhoven said it would be good to have a uniform guide which means a 70kmh road in Taranaki looks similar to an 70kmh road in Invercargill or Northland.
‘‘About 80 per cent of the roads in Taranaki would be 80kmh or less, state highways and all. There would be an outcry if that was imposed.’’
Councillor Marie Pearce said she supported 80kmh on the rural roads but hoped it would not apply to state highways.
She said she could understand from the social point of view but the economic impact would be huge.
However, the guidelines were only principles, not hard and fast rules, said infrastructure manager David Langford.
The three options were to adopt the guidelines district-wide, which was approved, to adopt them in clusters, or to continue managing speed limits on a reactionary basis.
‘‘This is not about setting the speed limits on our roads today,’’ he said.
‘‘This is about adopting some guiding principles that gives us some direction and consistency.’’
The guidelines will apply to the NZTA as much as local authorities, he said.
‘‘It’s about weighing up the loss of productivity to the New Zealand economy against the social cost which is $150 million in Taranaki last year for the fatalities and the serious injuries.’’
He added that the Mangorei Rd/ State Highway 3 intersection was a high priority for the NZTA as part of their SH3 review.
However, AA regulations principal advisor Mark Stockdale said the speed management guide was not intended to be a blanket proposal.
‘‘It encourages road controlling authorities to focus on the five per cent of roads in their network that have a speed-related crash risk,’’ he said. ‘‘The council can then determine what is the appropriate treatment.’’
They then should decide, given the traffic and use of the road, whether to do further engineering work or lower the speed limit.
‘‘The whole principal underpinning this guide, which all road controlling authorities are required to follow, is that there aren’t blanket treatments.’’