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Rodney Local Board has made a plea for consistency in setting speed limits on local roads as Auckland Transport (AT) develops a new Speed Management Plan for 2023 to 2026.
Members want to see uniform speed limit setting across the region for all types of road, including those that are unsealed, outside schools and where feeder roads meet main roads.
And it singled out Dairy Flat Highway outside Dairy Flat Primary School as a special case that AT needed to review as it developed the plan. In their feedback, members said the current 80kph speed limit, which drops to 60kph at drop-off and pick-up times, needed to be reduced further.
“Opposite the primary is the largest landfill in New Zealand, with consent for 680 truck movements per day,” they said in their submission to AT. “There is strong community demand for the speed limit to be reduced permanently to 60kph, with dynamic speed signs reducing speed at pick-up and drop-off to 30kph.”
This is in line with what is happening around many urban schools, and at last month’s Local Board meeting, Dairy Flat member Louise Johnston asked AT senior transport engineer Xinghao Chen if rural schools were being considered similarly in the 2023 to 2026 plan.
Chen admitted they weren’t.
“Our focus is on urban schools for the next three years,” she said. “We haven’t targeted rural schools yet, but it’s likely we will cover them in the next plan.”
The proposed AT plan is designed to meet government policy requirements to reduce road deaths and serious injuries by cutting speeds, and will form a framework for setting new limits and influencing plans for safety infrastructure across Auckland.
AT has already cut speeds on 11 percent of its road network and changes to a further 27 percent are in the pipeline, under the first three phases of its Safe Speeds Programme.
The proposed 2023-26 speed management plan is an interim one, ahead of a 10-year plan that is expected to be in place from 2024 to 2034.
AT said the interim plan would continue its “process of expanding Auckland’s network of safer roads”.
Speed limit wish list As well as mentioning the highway outside Dairy Flat Primary School and a number of other Rodney roads for special consideration, board members voted to request the following in the interim plan: A limit of 60kph outside all schools, with lower limits at pick-up and drop-off; • consistent limits for unsealed roads; non-exit roads without centre lines; individual roads; and between main and feeder roads;• a review of speed limits for rural roads and intersections surrounding new Rodney urban areas;• that all road users were considered when accessing appropriate speed limits;• that where side roads intersected with main roads with limits of 80kph or above, these be reviewed for installation of turning bays and merging lanes for right-turning traffic.
