Down to 30 kilometres per hour in a lot of areas. Even down to 10 kph - just like they’re planning for that stretch of Gloucester Street where they’re going to blow a truckload of money on that 10-week trial.
The council wants to extend that 10 kph speed limit and have it pretty much in any area where vehicles and pedestrians use the same bit of asphalt or paving. Now that part of all this makes sense to me. As for the rest of it.
It’s all part of the council’s Draft Safer Speed Plan, which it put out for feedback yesterday.
Here are some of the other key numbers in what the Council’s proposing. It wants to have a speed limit of 30 kph in all residential streets and 40 kph on busier streets.
On roads like Memorial Ave, Blenheim Rd, Aldwins Road and Linwood Ave, the council wants the speed limits to go down to 50 kph. And any rural roads that are part of the council’s network, it’s talking about making speed limits of 60 and 80 kilometres per hour.
This is all at the same time as a new study which has found that most people think speed limits are fine as they are and don’t want to see any change.
Sixty-five percent said they thought the limits are about right as they are now. Although, don’t ask me what they are - because it seems the speed limit changes every 200 metres these days, doesn’t it?
Other results form this study show 20 percent of people think speed limits should be higher than what they are now. Twelve percent think they should be lower. And 3 percent of people are unsure.
So it’s against that backdrop of public opinion that the Christchurch City Council has come out with this plan to lower speed limits over the next few years.
Its Transport Operations Manager Stephen Wright is saying that making roads safer is a key priority for the council, and evidence shows that safer speeds save lives.
One of the stats he’s using to justify the changes is that if a pedestrian is hit by a car travelling at 50 kilometres per hour, their chance of surviving is 20 percent. But, if they’re hit by a vehicle travelling 30 kph, then the survival rate increases to 90 percent.
Now I’m not going to argue with that. Because I don’t have any other evidence or statistics to back-up any argument against it. But also because it seems commonsense to think that the slower a vehicle is going, the less of a threat it is to pedestrians.
I’ve had a read of the council’s draft plan and another thing it’s pointing out is that lower speed limits would make it much easier for drivers to stop suddenly if something happened in front of them. Again, I’m not going to argue with that.
However, like a lot of these strategies and plans, other considerations seem to be missing.
The conspiracy theorists, of course, will say that this is part of the masterplan to force us out of our cars. And, on this occasion, they would be right. Because the council’s document has a little diagram showing how lower speed limits would change things. And one of those changes - according to the council anyway - is more people riding bikes and scooters, and walking.
So that’s all in there. But what isn’t in there, is what these reduced speed limits might mean for the efficiency of New Zealand’s second-largest city. And nowhere in this plan, does it mention that the population here is expected to increase and increase and increase.
In the next 20-odd years, the number of people living here is expected to increase by about 30 percent. They’re talking about the Greater Christchurch population being over 700-000.
But the council doesn’t seem to be factoring this growth into its thinking. And, surely, the longer it takes us to get around the place - with more and more people living here every year - surely, that’s just a recipe for us becoming another bottleneck city like Auckland.
What’s more, lowering speed limits doesn’t suddenly make people better drivers. People won’t stop running red lights if the speed limit is 30 kph. It won’t stop muppets keeping their indicators on when they drive straight through intersections.
Lowering speed limits won’t make people stop looking at their phone all the time when they’re driving. And lower speed limits certainly won’t stop people taking off from the cops and crashing.
The only thing these lower speed limits will do is make everybody more frustrated and more willing to take risks. Which would completely go against the intent behind this plan by the council.
John MacDonald is the Canterbury Mornings host on Newstalk ZB Christchurch. This article was first published HERE
It’s all part of the council’s Draft Safer Speed Plan, which it put out for feedback yesterday.
Here are some of the other key numbers in what the Council’s proposing. It wants to have a speed limit of 30 kph in all residential streets and 40 kph on busier streets.
On roads like Memorial Ave, Blenheim Rd, Aldwins Road and Linwood Ave, the council wants the speed limits to go down to 50 kph. And any rural roads that are part of the council’s network, it’s talking about making speed limits of 60 and 80 kilometres per hour.
This is all at the same time as a new study which has found that most people think speed limits are fine as they are and don’t want to see any change.
Sixty-five percent said they thought the limits are about right as they are now. Although, don’t ask me what they are - because it seems the speed limit changes every 200 metres these days, doesn’t it?
Other results form this study show 20 percent of people think speed limits should be higher than what they are now. Twelve percent think they should be lower. And 3 percent of people are unsure.
So it’s against that backdrop of public opinion that the Christchurch City Council has come out with this plan to lower speed limits over the next few years.
Its Transport Operations Manager Stephen Wright is saying that making roads safer is a key priority for the council, and evidence shows that safer speeds save lives.
One of the stats he’s using to justify the changes is that if a pedestrian is hit by a car travelling at 50 kilometres per hour, their chance of surviving is 20 percent. But, if they’re hit by a vehicle travelling 30 kph, then the survival rate increases to 90 percent.
Now I’m not going to argue with that. Because I don’t have any other evidence or statistics to back-up any argument against it. But also because it seems commonsense to think that the slower a vehicle is going, the less of a threat it is to pedestrians.
I’ve had a read of the council’s draft plan and another thing it’s pointing out is that lower speed limits would make it much easier for drivers to stop suddenly if something happened in front of them. Again, I’m not going to argue with that.
However, like a lot of these strategies and plans, other considerations seem to be missing.
The conspiracy theorists, of course, will say that this is part of the masterplan to force us out of our cars. And, on this occasion, they would be right. Because the council’s document has a little diagram showing how lower speed limits would change things. And one of those changes - according to the council anyway - is more people riding bikes and scooters, and walking.
So that’s all in there. But what isn’t in there, is what these reduced speed limits might mean for the efficiency of New Zealand’s second-largest city. And nowhere in this plan, does it mention that the population here is expected to increase and increase and increase.
In the next 20-odd years, the number of people living here is expected to increase by about 30 percent. They’re talking about the Greater Christchurch population being over 700-000.
But the council doesn’t seem to be factoring this growth into its thinking. And, surely, the longer it takes us to get around the place - with more and more people living here every year - surely, that’s just a recipe for us becoming another bottleneck city like Auckland.
What’s more, lowering speed limits doesn’t suddenly make people better drivers. People won’t stop running red lights if the speed limit is 30 kph. It won’t stop muppets keeping their indicators on when they drive straight through intersections.
Lowering speed limits won’t make people stop looking at their phone all the time when they’re driving. And lower speed limits certainly won’t stop people taking off from the cops and crashing.
The only thing these lower speed limits will do is make everybody more frustrated and more willing to take risks. Which would completely go against the intent behind this plan by the council.
John MacDonald is the Canterbury Mornings host on Newstalk ZB Christchurch. This article was first published HERE
2 comments:
Like the NZTA the CCC are using the Daft Safer Speed Plan.
don't you know that the wheel is a colonial construct? so horses should be okay, but carts are not. in fact, even horses were brought in by colonials.
so, the best option is to learn riding birds like avatar taught us. maybe that's why cameron got a sweet deal to send the work to nz!
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