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Residential Speed Management programme Residential Speed Management programme

Most Aucklanders live on urban residential streets. These communities have highlighted the need to make our streets safer places for walking and cycling, for children, the elderly and the differently abled.

What is the Residential Speed Management Programme?

Vehicles speeding through residential streets are a common concern for Aucklanders. Each year, we receive around 1,000 requests from the public for speed calming to be installed on their street.

As part of our commitment to make Auckland’s roads safer, we have adopted an area-based approach instead of treating individual streets. This is considered more effective in achieving survivable speeds and helping drivers choose a safe and appropriate speed as they drive through residential areas.

This area-based approach has been adopted because:

  • It is often observed that when speed calming is undertaken on one street, speeding drivers use parallel residential streets and simply transfer the issue to another part of the network. An area-based approach prevents this from occurring.
  • Treatment of individual streets only allowed for a small number of streets to be prioritised annually. In contrast, an area-based focus not only allows for speed calming measures to be implemented on a cluster of streets, it would also enable any future reduction of the speed limits within the area.
  • Drivers bypassing traffic signals or busy roads use residential streets which are not designed for high volumes of traffic. An area-based approach reduces bypassing traffic and improves the overall safety in residential areas.

Prioritising areas

Given the volume of requests from Aucklanders, we need to prioritise those residential areas that are most in need of interventions. As such, we analysed all residential areas in the Auckland region in terms of the following criteria:

  • Crash data and risk.
  • Vulnerable road user risk, which considers the likelihood of a pedestrian or cyclist being involved in a crash along a road.
  • Speed of motorised traffic.
  • Location of community facilities, such as schools and kindergartens, community halls, parks and reserves, and walking and cycling routes in the vicinity.
  • Any road curvature, steepness or contours that would prevent speed-calming measures from being effective.
  • Concerns and requests raised by the general public, community groups and elected members.

Priority areas identified as a result of this analysis are listed below. These will be reviewed every 3 years. Projects within these areas will be confirmed annually and will be dependent on programming.

Within the prioritised areas, speed-calming measures would be installed on local streets, excluding arterial roads. We also work closely with other AT teams on existing or proposed projects (such as a road maintenance programme) which may influence design or changes that can be introduced.

Upcoming/current projects

Completed projects

Priority areas subject to programming (not in any particular order)

Monitoring

Monitoring of completed projects is an integral part of the Residential Speed Management Programme.

Public perceptions: Rosehill, Papakura, Te Atatu South, and Manurewa (Area 1 and Area 2)

In September 2019, we introduced speed calming measures to selected areas in the Rosehill, Papakura, and Te Atatu South residential areas, followed by Manurewa (Area 1) in June 2020 and Manurewa (Area 2) in September 2022. 

We commissioned Gravitas Research to conduct research with residents in these areas to help understand the awareness of the measures that have been put in place, the impact that the measures have had, and the public perceptions and potential changes to travel mode used.

Download the Road Safety Perceptions Survey - Papakura and Te Atatu 2020 (PDF 2.5MB)

Download the Road Safety Perceptions Survey - Manurewa (Area 1) 2021 (PDF 1.28MB, 39 pages)

Download the Road Safety Perceptions Survey - Manurewa (Area 2) 2022 (PDF 2.4MB, 40 pages)

Here is a summary of the results:

An image showing perception survey results. The first line shows that 68% of respondents in Te Atatu, 76% of respondents in Papakura, 76% of respondents in Manurewa (Area 1), and 75% of respondents in Manurewa (Area 2) felt that the measures resulted in a net increase in road safety. 31% of respondents in Te Atatu, 44% of respondents in Papakura, 35% of respondents in Manurewa (Area 1) and 28% of respondents in Manurewa (Area 2) now use at least one active mode more. Local net increases by individual mode are displayed on the final line. In Te Atatu, 26% more people walk, 6% more people cycle, and 1% less people scooter. In Papakura, 37% more people walk, 12% more people cycle, and 2% more people scooter. In Manurewa (Area 1), 26% more people walk, 5% more people cycle, and 7% more people scooter. In Manurewa (Area 2), 19% more people walk, 28% more people cycle, and 25% more people scooter.

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