Safer speeds - a month on

31/07/2020 12:51 am

Today, 30 July, marks one month since Auckland Transport (AT) introduced safer speeds on more than 600 roads across Auckland.

As part of Auckland Transport’s Safe Speeds programme, there are now lower speed limits for Auckland’s City Centre, and on some roads in the Rodney and Franklin Local Board areas.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff says “reducing speeds on high-risk roads is part of how we hope to reduce deaths and serious injuries and keep road users safe. It is encouraging to see that Aucklanders understand the need for the changes and that most support them being made.

“While we all want to get from one place to another as quickly as possible, we also want to see the levels of deaths and serious injuries on the road reduced. The lower speed limits tend to reduce travel times by only a few minutes,” the mayor says.

Speed limits on approximately 100 other roads across the region also changed on 30 June.

A survey of 610 Auckland drivers conducted from 14 to 22 July and released today, shows 61% of respondents support the changes.

The vast majority (93%) showed a level of concern with the number of death and serious injuries on New Zealand roads.
Seven in ten (71%) believe the speed limit changes will help reduce the risk and/or severity of injury when crashes occur.
People were most supportive of speed limit changes near schools and kindergartens (86% support), in local towns and shopping centres (72%) and on rural roads with high crash rates (71%).

More than half of the survey respondents who were aware of the changes felt their travel time had increased. Data shows that within the city centre, the speed limit change has had little to no impact on average journey times.

Where increased average journey times have occurred, these have been less than 1 minute.

Bryan Sherritt, AT’s executive general manager of safety, says this is because average travel speeds in the city centre were already at or below the new speed limits.

“Similarly, based on a sample of roads in Franklin, the speed limit change has had little or no impact on average journey time, since average travel speeds tended to already be at or below the new speed limits,” Mr Sherritt says.

Setting safe speed limits is just one part of AT’s significant road safety investment between 2018 and 2028.

In 2018-19, AT delivered approximately $45 million of safety engineering improvements, as well as increased road safety education.