Decision on speed review for district’s roads today

Speed limits on hundreds of streets and roads throughout New Plymouth will change if the district council adopts its latest review recommendation today.

The Safer Speeds Review has been bouncing around various consultation processes for years and is now in front of the council for a final decision.

The review recommends a patchwork of different speed zones throughout urban and rural areas, with an emphasis on lowering the limits around schools, in the majority of cases to 30 kilometres an hour.

Open speed limits in rural areas have also come under the spotlight, with an expectant drop to 80kph likely.

Speed management guidelines issued by the Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency in 2016 now form part of the agency’s latest campaign – Road to Zero – which aims to significantly reduce the road toll throughout the country.

In the last 10 years there have been 861 death or injury accidents in the New Plymouth district, of which 671 were attributed to driver error.

A key component to reducing the harm from those accidents is speed reduction.

The council has budgeted $64.4 million on road safety improvements, targeting high risk roads over the next 10 years.

The cost of changing road signage and markings would be $1.85m.

Of the more than 1250 public responses the council received during its consultation process, 89% were in favour of reducing speeds.

Today’s meeting, the second-tolast scheduled for the term of this council, also includes the purchase of the land housing elderly flats on Bell Block’s Wynyard St from the Catholic Church for nearly $2m.

The church had wanted a land swap, the Wynyard St property for the council owned car park on Powderham St.