Proposals to lower speeds on Auckland streets run the risk of creating too many different limits on rural roads, Franklin Local Board says.
Giving its feedback to Auckland Transport’s proposed speed limit changes, the board says the proposals would mean four different speeds on the Āwhitu Peninsula alone.
“That has the potential to create inconsistency and confusion for road users,” Board chair Andy Baker says.
“We favour an approach suggested by AT staff after we appeared before its Board to challenge some of the proposals in the second tranche of roads a couple of months ago.
“That was that through-roads should be the same as the roads from which they feed, and that solutions such as centre lines to make roads safer to drive were preferable to simply dropping the speed limit more than 20kph.
“It also included that multiple speed limit signs needed to signal the changes, and that roads servicing only a few rural properties should have the same limits as their feeder roads unless special circumstances existed, such as metal surfaces.”
The board also says roads outside all rural schools and marae should be able to drop to 40kph using school zones with variable speed limits, or be set at 40kph permanently.
“We have a lot of country schools, and even schools such as Maraetai that were once on quiet roads that just aren’t today.
“And we also have challenges city boards don’t, in terms of small coastal developments and villages where there are no or limited footpaths, where we say a consistent 40kph should be used.”
The board is advocating that the default speed for all open roads, unless metal, past schools, functioning marae or within residential development areas, be set at 80kph because it is consistent and easily understood.
“We can’t support a random approach to implementing 30kph streets within Pukekohe either, because it is inconsistent across the town and will create confusion, particularly when most of these streets are cul-de-sacs.”
