Speeds on all central city streets will be reduced to 30km/h apart from main roads. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
Speeds on all central city streets will be reduced to 30km/h apart from main roads. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
A 30km/h speed limit around Wellington's Golden Mile is being extended to most other streets in the central city.
Speeds on all central city streets will be reduced to 30km/h apart from main roads, including the waterfront quays, Cable and Wakefield Sts, Kent and Cambridge Terraces, Vivian St and Karo Drive.
Wellington City Council's strategy and policy committee gave the green light today for the move to go ahead following public consultation, which showed 64 per cent of submitters supported the proposal and 34 per cent opposed it.
The safer speeds package is one of the quick wins in the $6.4b Let's Get Wellington Moving transport package.
Associate transport portfolio leader councillor Jenny Condie said she wanted city streets to be inviting and pleasant places.
"When speeds are lowered to 30km/h, road noise and air pollution are both significantly reduced which makes it just a nicer place to be. We know that people riding bikes and scooters will feel more confident to mix with vehicles when those vehicles are travelling at a slower speed.
"This will leave more space on the footpaths for people who are travelling at a walker pace, whether they are pedestrians or wheelchair users or a 4-year-old on their little scooter."
Cars travelling at 30km/h produce half the noise of a car travelling at 50km/h.
Condie said the move would also support ground-floor retail and hospitality businesses in the CBD which were doing it tough due to the Covid-19 economic fallout.
"When our streets are pleasant places to be people linger there and when they spend more time, they spend more money."
Wellington City councillor Jenny Condie says she wants city streets to be inviting and pleasant places. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
Councillor Laurie Foon echoed Condie's comments and said the new speed limits would encourage visitors into the central city.
"We sell Wellington on being the most walkable city in the nation and so why wouldn't we go all out?"
Since the beginning of 2014, Police have attended 492 crashes in the zone where speed limits will be reduced.
Of those 22 of these resulted in serious injuries.
At the beginning of the meeting, Save the Basin Campaign spokesman Tim Jones said the current proposal was better than what the city had now, but it didn't go far enough.
"I'd like to see the city council commit to a comprehensive 30km/h zone that isn't weakened by arbitrary changes from 30km/h to 50km/h limit every time someone comes to an arterial road."
But Condie said it was a deliberate decision to encourage people driving through the city to use those main routes rather than quieter streets.
She acknowledged it was a compromise and some people wouldn't be happy, but said it could always be revisited down the line.
It's expected the new speed limits will be implemented in late July.
Lambton ward councillor Iona Pannett said today was a historic vote after the move to reduce speed limits was narrowly voted down by the council of the day six years ago.
Councillor Jill Day said it was sad it has taken six years to make the change.
"I just really hope that we don't take six years to work our way through challenging situations every time we come across one."
A pedestrian hit by a driver travelling at 30km/h has on average has an 85 per cent chance of surviving compared with a 30 per cent chance of survival at 50km/h.
Andy Foster said you couldn't argue against physics.
"Some streets are about vehicles and moving vehicles around our town, other streets are about people and this is about the people parts of our city."
