Atawhai speed limit review under way

Tuesday, 2 July 2019

Despite promising delays in an Atawhai speed reduction, New Zealand Transport Agency representatives now say work on the reduction is already under way.

NZTA representative Steve Higgs said in a meeting of Nelson council's regional transport committee that the agency 'have now agreed to look at Atawhai as part of the State Highway 6 from Nelson to Blenheim for a speed management review'.

'That is actually under way at the moment, we have already looked at a technical assessment. The process from here is that we will undertake a technical assessment, then there will be a process to get approval, and then we will go out for consultation.'

The Atawhai 'stakeholder engagement programme' was expected to roll out within the next two months.

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'This is part of the Nelson programme. I guess the way to describe it is that this part of the programme has been fast-tracked and the rest of the programme will be delivered in the next year, year-and-a-half,' Higgs said.

'The very clear steer from the community was that appropriate speed was something that they needed to tackle first, that was the significant issue.'

The fast-tracking of the speed reduction comes just two months after the committee was upset by news that the project could be delayed by a year or more.

Because the road is part of the state highway network, it is beyond the purview of the council to change the speed limit. At a committee meeting in April, Nelson mayor Rachel Reese suggested 'some kind of estuary improvements all the way along' the highway to enable the council to put in temporary speed restrictions while the NZTA processed the speed review.

The Blenheim-to-Nelson stretch of State Highway 6 was identified by the NZTA as a priority for improvement in 2017 due to the large number of serious accidents on the 110km section of road.

In the ten years from 2006 to 2016, 20 people died and 93 were seriously injured on the highway. Five of those deaths were in the Atawhai area.