The Slowdown: 40km/h speed reduction for Wellington’s Remutaka Hill proposed

Residents of Wellington’s Remutaka Hill are used to the sound of sirens and emergency services.

“You can hear the sirens go off with all the accidents, once a week or so,” local business owner Kelly Mackie said.

Another local, Steve Brocklebank, who has lived on Marchant Rd on Remutaka Hill since 1998, said it was not unusual to hear sirens or the helicopter on a Sunday afternoon or in certain weather.

“It’s a norm, almost.”

Since 2010, nine people have died and 41 have been seriously injured in crashes on State Highway 2 which crosses the hill, a key route connecting the Wairarapa with Wellington.

It’s one of the main reasons why transport authorities have proposed reducing the road’s speed limit by 40km per hour in the most dangerous section, from 100km to 60km.

The route has been included in Waka Kotahi’s Interim State Highway Speed Management Plan 2023-2024, which proposes speed limit changes - mainly reductions - to around 3.2 per cent of the country’s state highways and further reductions around schools, marae, and other urban areas.

More expansive proposals are expected in Waka Kotahi’s full plan when it is released for public consultation later this year.

On Remutaka Hill, transport authorities have proposed reducing the road’s speed limit by 40km per hour, from 100km to 60km in the steepest, windiest 11km near the top. The limit would come down to 80km/h in the lower sections near Upper Hutt and Featherston.

The changes would affect the highway from northwest of Renall St to south of Marchant Rd.

Brocklebank said while 100km per hour was far too high, 60km per hour was too low.

“I travelled over there this week and got stuck behind someone doing between 50km per hour and just over, and it does seem very slow.

“I feel that if we were to set it at that, it is going to take a generation before it is accepted as the speed limit and it could create crashes.

“Because we are used to going 100km per hour on it, people are going to be impatient.”

Phillip Gorrie, who has lived in the area for 10 years, said the road was “bloody dangerous” and he had witnessed many crashes while driving it. He supported the proposed speed limit reduction.

“I’ve seen a lot ... you see the carnage,” he said.

“About three or four years ago, a motorcyclist came flying around by the cafe and hit the sign and killed himself and that was right across from our place.”

The speed limit changes are part of a national strategy, Road to Zero, to significantly reduce the number of people killed in crashes on New Zealand roads.

Eventually, authorities hope to reduce the road toll to zero.

Waka Kotahi can point to evidence that reducing a local speed limit in a dangerous location has previously reduced the number of people killed or seriously injured in road crashes.

In 2011, the speed limit on SH2 in Maramarua, a notorious area for fatal crashes, was reduced from 100km per hour to 90km per hour.

A report for Waka Kotahi by Dr Fergus Tate, published in August 2021, analysed serious crashes on that road for five years before the reduction and five years afterwards.

The report concluded the changes “could be expected to have saved 14 [deaths and serious injuries] in the first five years with only a marginal increase in travel time of 95 seconds based on the change in average speed from 95.4 km/h to 86.5 km/h”.