Taranaki St kept out of Wellington City Council 30kmh speed limit proposal

Wednesday, 5 February 2020

A mass public transport system is due to be constructed between Wellington Railway Station and the airport as part of the $6.4 billion Let's Get Wellington Moving programme.

Taranaki St will be left out of an upcoming consultation on lowering speed limits on some central Wellington streets to 30kmh.

About 50 streets will included in Wellington City Council's safer speeds programme, which recommends lowering speeds to 30kmh on all central city roads apart from main arterial routes.

Following public consultation, council officers recommended removing Taranaki St from the proposal because of the extensive infrastructure that would be needed to successfully reduce vehicle speeds.

Wellington City Council officers recommended against making changes to Taranaki St's speed limit but councillors included it in a proposal anyway. (File photo)

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The proposal is part of a programme to make Wellington's central city streets safer and more pedestrian-friendly. (File photo)

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About 50 streets are included in the proposal, including Taranaki St between the waterfront and State Highway 1 north.

* Cars to go from Golden Mile**

'Given the layout of Taranaki St, officers don't believe these speeds will be achieved without significant investment in traffic calming infrastructure,' a council report said.

A small section of Taranaki St near Courtenay Place is already 30kmh.

With the street also likely to be part of a proposed mass transit route, any early changes would were likely to be 'short-lived, poor value for money, and unnecessarily disruptive'.

'Officers are proposing to leave Waterloo Quay, Customhouse Quay (north of Panama Street), Jervois Quay, Cable St, Wakefield St (east of Taranaki St), Kent/Cambridge Terrace, and Taranaki Street as they currently are to encourage vehicle drivers on to the main arterials.'

But at a council meeting on Wednesday, councillors noted there was wide support in the feedback for including Taranaki St, among others, in the programme.

Councillor Iona Pannett, who wanted the speed restrictions to take in further areas such as Oriental Bay and Te Aro, said it was important Taranaki St was included in the proposal.

Nineteen per cent of comments in the feedback suggested more streets become 30kmh or lower, compared with just 9 per cent which called for more streets to become 40kmh or 50kmh, she said.

Any excluded streets would not be eligible for speed reductions in the current programme, with a second round of consultation required.

'The pace this council moves at is so slow. Everything takes forever.

'I do not want to wait five or 10 years to improve Taranaki St.'

However, councillor Malcolm Sparrow questioned whether the speed limit needed to be changed to improve safety.

'We have been saying drivers will respond to the way the street looks. If we had a separated cycleway, surely we could retain a 50kmh speed limit.'

Councillors subsequently agreed to exclude it in the proposal, which will go out for public consultation in March.

The first of the changes wille be finalised in May, and introduced in September.

Reduced speeds will be considered for Jervois Quay, Wakefield and Cable streets, and Kent/Cambridge Terrace in future proposals, along with some streets in Thorndon including Molesworth, Murphy, and Mulgrave streets, and Thorndon Quay.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly said councillors had voted to include Taranaki St in the safer speeds consultation.