Speed limits in the entire high-rise and downtown end of Mount Maunganui will be slashed to 30km/h on August 1.
It is one of a package of potentially controversial measures which includes dropping the Totara St limit by 10km/h to 60km/h. The radical reassessment on streets at the crowded end of the Mount follows a favourable traffic engineer's report on the existing 30km/h speed limits on part of Adams Ave and the top end of Marine Parade down to Banks Ave. Lowering the speed from 50km/h for the rest of the northern end of the isthmus, above Banks and Salisbury avenues, was supported by Tauranga City Council this week.
The first phase of the restrictions introduced three years ago was to improve pedestrian safety against a backdrop of raised pedestrian crossings and problems caused by cruising boy racers.
Council transportation operations manager Martin Parkes told Monday's meeting he was encouraged by recent speed surveys and anecdotal evidence that the existing 30km/h limits were working. Surveys showed that the average speed along Maunganui Rd at the point 75m north of Salisbury Ave was about 24km/h, The Mall between Adams Ave and Leinster Ave was about 34km/h and Maunganui Rd 40m north of Grace Ave was about 36km/h.
The new limit takes effect from August 1 and covers the northern end of Maunganui Rd, Adams Ave from The Mall to the intersection with Maunganui Rd, and the entire lengths of The Mall, Victoria St, May St, Rita St, Pacific Ave, Prince Ave, Grace Ave, Commons Ave, Leinster Ave and Pilot Quay.
Other changes include 40km/h variable school speed zones past Papamoa Primary School and Bethlehem College, from October 25.
August 1 will also see the limit on Totara St cut from 70km/h to 60km/h; the main urban portion of Pyes Pa Rd rise to 60km/h, nearly 1km of Cambridge Rd fall from 70km/h to 60km/h; the bottom portion of Oropi Rd from Phillips Drive drop from 100km/h to 80km/h.
Pyes Pa Rd from Saville Place to just north of Joyce Rd will have a 70km/h limit.
Mount Maunganui's new speed limit: 30 km/h
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