Horowhenua Chronicle

Expressway speeds are under review

- Tim Costley MP for O¯ taki Tim Costley Ōtaki MP

Last week our Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, announced that NZTA are opening public consultati­on on changing the speed limit on our expressway to 110km/h.

I’m strongly encouragin­g everyone to have their say. Consultati­on opens on Monday.

The last National Government funded and started all our local expressway­s.

They were designed and built to be safe at higher speeds, just like the new Waikato expressway­s are already 110km/h. It’s time to speed up our region.

It’s important to note this will be just the section between Otaki ¯ and Raumati. At each end there will be a section at 100km/h (1.6km at the northern end) so there is no change to safety with how traffic moves from the expressway to 100km/h on a single lane and then to 80km/h as we hit the awful road from O¯ taki to Levin. But don’t worry, National will build the four-lane expressway all the way to the north of Levin!

Whether you live in Horowhenua or Ka¯ piti, this road is integral to our region, and like me you probably drive it regularly.

Increasing the speed safely can increase productivi­ty, help us to grow our economy, and it also aligns it with roads in Waikato and Bay of Plenty built to the same safety standards, but currently we’re the slowest of them all.

The last Government wanted to slow us down with 30km/h around town; we want to speed our community and our economy up.

The easiest way to support this is to head to https://www.national.org. nz/makekapiti­expressway­110 or my Facebook page, sign my petition to increase the speed, and I’ll submit all the names together before submission­s close.

 ?? ?? Residents aged over 60 paid a visit to MP Tim Costley (front, right) in Parliament last week.
Residents aged over 60 paid a visit to MP Tim Costley (front, right) in Parliament last week.
 ?? ?? HOROWHENUA MATTERS
HOROWHENUA MATTERS

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