Central government’s announcement in September this year of new Land Transport Rules (LTR) for setting road speed limits raised expectations that this district’s residential speed limits would return to the national 50km/h standard. 

Transport minister Simeon Brown said the previous government’s approach to road safety led to untargeted speed limit reductions across the country and New Zealanders rejected the blanket speed limit reductions.

The new rules would reverse blanket speed limit reductions on local streets, arterial roads and state highways and road controlling authorities (RCAs), such as Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC), had about eight months to make the changes.

Locals may be disappointed, however, as QLDC hasn’t said it is dusting off the old speed limits, rather it has directed its legal team to investigate “what the new LTR means for our district”. 

Apparently, there’s a loophole.

A QLDC spokesperson told the Wānaka App last week that new rules directed the reversal of reduced speed limits which came into effect from January 1, 2020; but the QLDC’s blanket speed limits took effect one month before in December 2019. 

The spokesperson said some roads might retain the current speed limit: “This may be the case as we work to meet the requirements of the new LTR. We’re doing this in line with NZTA’s guidance.” 

LTR: setting speed limits 2024

Under the new rules speed management plans are optional and RCAs must explicitly consider economic factors, including the impact on travel times, and provide a cost benefit disclosure statement for each proposed speed limit. 

Speed limits around schools have changed; in most cases variable speed limits will apply with slower speeds in effect only during pick up and drop off times outside school gates.

And there’s a new binding schedule of road classifications specifying permanent speed limits or ranges of speed limits for each class of road. RCAs must align proposed speed limits with this schedule. If the proposed speed limit doesn’t align, the RCA must complete and provide a cost benefit disclosure statement for each proposed change for consultation purposes.

Lower speed limits reflecting unusual circumstances were introduced in some residential areas, such as Kiromoko.

For example, the schedule states the standard speed for urban roads is 50km/h. There are exceptions, such as the speed can be lowered to 40k if the urban road has no footpaths; and if it has significant levels of pedestrian and/or cycling activity.  

RCAs must get public feedback on speed management plans and consider this feedback before submitting their draft plans for NZTA certification. They must also have recently consulted on proposed speed limits and considered any submissions. 

What the data shows

As RCA, QLDC staff monitor the road use, recording the number of traffic movements, speeds, road states, and so on.

QLDC data provided to Wānaka App taken from several key Wānaka connector roads, such as Anderson Road, Wānaka-Mt Aspiring Road, McDougall Street and Beacon Point Road, at various times throughout this year shows that the majority of road users drive above the 40k speed limit.

In the case of the Wānaka-Mt Aspiring Road, on two separate monitoring periods of up to a week, monitors recorded the mean speed in excess of 60km/h and more than 97 percent of drivers were speeding.

Anderson Road’s mean speed was much lower at 47km/h but almost 88 percent of drivers were exceeding the 40k limit during a 10 day period in October.

Brownston Street was the exception. Over a nine day period in August/September the mean speed was 36.1km/h and fewer than 18 percent were speeding. Later in October, the majority of drivers were speeding but the mean speed was just over 40km/h.

Wānaka resident and former city traffic engineer Graham Dickson reviewed the road data for the Wānaka App and acknowledged that despite the 40k speed limits having been in effect for years most drivers were driving faster than the speed limit most of the time. 

“We’re certainly not getting traffic doing anywhere near 40k,” he said.

He suggested the lower speeds recorded on Brownston Street were likely constrained by pedestrian activity, traffic congestion associated with town centre intersections, vehicles parking, and so on.

“The 40k speed limit may be having an effect; whether that’s justified or [if] there are any benefits is hard to say,” he said.

Graham said as most of the monitoring was taken at points near to intersections (such as Caltex roundabout), the traffic speeds recorded were likely affected by the need for vehicles to carefully negotiate the intersections.

Wānaka’s speed limits history

For many years the district’s speed limits were set by a local Speed Limit Bylaw. The 2009 Bylaw was reviewed in 2018/19 and replaced with the controversial Speed Limits Bylaw 2019.

The 2019 Bylaw caused controversy as it introduced blanket speed limit reductions on almost all urban roads, mostly from 50k to 40k, as well as some rural roads.

During public consultation of the draft bylaw which proposed the speed reductions, the majority of the more than 350 submitters opposed the blanket speed reductions because there was no evidence presented which confirmed the 50km/h speed limit in this district’s urban/residential areas was inherently dangerous. 

There was support for limited speed reductions around schools and on some other roads. 

The 2019 bylaw with reduced speed limits came into effect in December 2019 and, at considerable cost, hundreds of speed limit signs were replaced.

Two years later, the 2019 bylaw was revoked when it was replaced by new national rules issued by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency’s new Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2022, but the speed limits were largely unchanged.

The 2022 Land Transport Rule has now been superseded by the latest NZTA Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2024.

Throughout these numerous changes to the rules, local urban roads governed by NZTA remained at 50km/h.

What happens next

QLDC has fewer than eight months to get its ducks in a row.

With the exception of new speed limits around schools, the LTR directs all RCAs to review and set approved new speed limits by May 1 2025 and have them in force by July 1 2025. RCAs have until July 1 2026 to make variable speed limits around schools effective.

The cost will be funded entirely by QLDC. 

The QLDC spokesperson would not share with the Wānaka App the cost of installing the previous blanket speed limit changes in 2019 and, given that legal assessment of the LTR has only just begun, was unable to estimate the cost of any new speed limit changes. 

“Council applied for, but did not receive, funding for this work [to comply with the new rules] from NZTA in its most recent application. Hence our ‘local share’ is expected to be 100 percent,” the spokesperson said.