Speed limit reductions reversals to begin
Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Check out if speed limits change where you live and have your say in the comments below.
Many speed limits that were lowered under the previous government are expected to be reversed.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister of Transport Chris Bishop have announced a suite of speed limit reversals, with one controversial stretch of road to be changed from 80kph to 100kph, effective immediately.
That section of State Highway 2 between Featherston and Masterton, will change overnight but the other changes are expected to come into place in the middle of the year.
“Today our Government is announcing that between tonight and 1 July, NZTA will automatically reverse speed limits on 38 sections of the state highway network back to their previous higher speed limit,” Bishop said at a media conference in Wairarapa on Wednesday morning.
“The first state highway to reverse will be the section of SH2 between Featherston and Masterton, where the speed limit reduction in early 2023 under the previous government met with huge community hostility – the exact road that Kieran McAnulty failed to get any action on. This change which will take effect overnight tonight.”
Thirty-eight sections of state highway are slated for for automatic reversal. A section of SH1 north of Kaitaia will go from 60kph to 100kph or 70 kph.
In Canterbury, a part of SH75 Halswell to Tai Tapu and then a section from Tai Tapu to Little River will shift from 80kph to 100kph.
In Wellington city, the section of SH1 from Taurima Street to Wellington Road moves to 70kph from 50kph. Another section of SH1 from Evans Bay Parade to Broadway increases to 70kph to 60kph.
A further list of 49 sections of state highway will be put out for further public consultation, that will begin on Thursday and run for six weeks.
Bishop said that there had been a lot of “community hostility” to decreased speed limits in places like Wairarapa because they didn’t feel the original speed limits were unsafe.
“This is a long section of state highway and people crawl along there at 80 going ‘this is crazy, why can’t I drive at 100’, and it creates enormous community angst.”
“Safety is very important and that’s why we’ve always said, we’re putting the speed limit back up where it’s safe to do so.”
Bishop said the Government will introduce reduced speed limits outside schools during pick-up and drop-off times.
“We want to see these changes brought about quickly,” Bishop said.
“By 1 July 2026, local streets outside a school will be required to have a 30km/h variable speed limit. Rural roads that are outside schools will be required to have variable speed limits of 60km/h or less.”
The Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2024 requires NZTA and local councils to reverse all speed limits lowered since January 2020 on several categories of roads back to their previous limits by 1 July 2025.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop took the opportunity to criticise previous the Wairarapa MP.
“Labour’s Kieran McAnulty said recently that as Associate Transport Minister under the previous government he’d asked NZTA to review the SH2 Wairarapa speed limit, and that they told him no. It seems he just shrugged and accepted that,” Bishop said.
McAnulty said he was pleased to see the speed limits go up.
“I pushed hard for the roundabouts at Ngaumutawa Rd and Norfolk Rd and am proud to have achieved them. But no one asked for the speed reductions that came along with them.
He said he was “very annoyed at NZTA”.
“They could have made this change when I asked them to a couple of years ago.
“They point blank refused back then, and now they are doing it. We could have avoided all of this. But regardless of my frustrations with them, I am pleased it has now happened.
“I’m not worried about being personally targeted by the PM and Minister – that’s just part of the rough and tumble of politics. Mike Butterick let the region down when he refused to oppose the proposed toll on the Manawatu-Tararua Highway, so I think they’re just trying to counter that.”
ACT leader David Seymour said sensible speed limits were a “triumph for common sense and democracy”.
“Instead of being dictated to by a faceless bureaucratic minority, the people are in charge again.
“The government’s job is to make life easier, if a road is safe to drive 100, 110, or 120kph, people should be allowed to drive that fast. It sounds simple, and it is, but the last Government’s ideological anti-car project made life harder than it needed to be.”
Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said the Government’s “pro-growth spin” could not hide that raising speed limits significantly increased the risk of serious harm.
“The Government is playing politics with people’s lives. Failing to follow the evidence and ignoring basic physics will have real-world consequences,” she said.
Comments are moderated during working hours and may not appear immediately.