Last week, Matt looked at how the government wants to pour a huge chunk of civic infrastructure funding for a generation  into one mega-road up North, at huge cost and huge opportunity cost.

A smaller but no less important feature of the National Land Transport Plan devised by Minister of Transport Simeon Brown is what the government has chosen not to invest in. As Jonathan Milne recently reported for Newsroom, amongst many other local projects that have been abruptly canned, Simeon Brown has axed funding for crossings and related street safety fixes for over 70 schools across the motu.

Dozens of schools are dismayed to learn they won’t now get speed humps and raised crossings to reduce danger to children.

Wentworth school on the Whangaparāoa Peninsula, in Auckland’s north, has been pleading for a raised crossing on busy Gulf Harbour Drive for five years. This year, at 8.30am on a busy Friday morning, a pedestrian was seriously injured while families were making their way to school.

So too at Ranui primary school in West Auckland, where pleas for a raised crossing and other urgent action weren’t addressed in time to save a five-year-old boy from serious injury this year.

“He was run over by a car in a 50kph zone,” says Ranui principal Teressa Smith. “Speed calming interventions are important to make sure drivers are not just aware it is a school zone, but to deliberately slow cars down.”

These are among 15 schools in our biggest, busiest city, for which Auckland Transport engineers were processing requests for speed humps or raised crossings. They’re among more than 70 schools nationwide that were waiting for councils to confirm funding.

Those processes all ground to a halt on Monday, when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the National Land Transport Fund would no longer contribute to speed humps, at all. The minister says “key highlights” of the $32.9 billion investment programme will be reducing funds for cycleways, and removing funding entirely for speed “bumps”, as he calls them.

This got me thinking: politicians rightly love to cut ribbons and have their names on things. But where do we install the plaques explaining what’s not been built, and why, and who decided? Why not commemorate the Minister’s proud record of achievement in removing things that “inconvenience motorists” to serve his strategic goal of “economic growth and productivity”?

Some children are lucky enough to have a raised crossing for safer access to school: this one is on Kelmarna Road, Auckland. Image: Pippa Coom.

It’s hard not to wonder if children and young people count as things that “inconvenience motorists”; they certainly don’t seem to qualify as productive. Yet, as Kiri Turketo, the executive principal of the 1300-pupil Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate in Ōtara, put it to Newsroom:

“When we talk about the barriers to learning, as principal, I am discussing the very real ability for our children to get to school safely … In amongst our students are the next great leaders and entrepreneurs of Aotearoa New Zealand – if they ever make it safely across the road to school.

This isn’t just speculation: for years, she’s been asking for “digital speed warning signs, yellow lines and raised crossings”:

Turketo manages 150 staff and a $16m budget, but doesn’t have legal authority to ensure her pupils’ safety as they cross the road to class. So the collegiate, which has distinct junior, middle and senior schools, has been operating “illegal road patrols” stopping traffic on the road outside, even though there’s no pedestrian crossing.

“How many times do our kids have to get hit before the ministry or Auckland Transport does something about it?” she asks. “Ten or 12 years ago, a student was killed because a parent came hooning around the corner and lost control of the car and went up onto the sidewalk.”


An own-goal for the coalition government

The great irony is that many of these cancelled school safety projects – and similar plans to make local streets calmer and nicer – have been avidly advocated for by people who are now in government. How must it feel, for those communities, watching government snatch back progress?

One such community is Horowhenua – where, as Jonathan Milne reports in a related article, local (National) MP Tim Costley put his weight behind requests for traffic-calming for Taitoko school in Levin:

Tim Costley served for the Air Force in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. But now the National MP finds himself a different kind of hero. And he’s an uncomfortably reluctant hero.

Horowhenua District Council says the MP requested the council install speed control humps outside Levin’s Taitoko School, where cars speed around the corner at enormous risk to the school’s 220 pupils. The school’s principal Renee Taipari reckons he went out on a limb for them.

The uncomfortable bit, for Costley, is that the Government campaigned against speed humps and, this week, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced they’d defund them all. Never mind, jokes Costley, they’ll just get out there with a brush and a can of white paint…

Or to give another, more local example: in 2021, in her role as local MP,  Erica Stanford (now Minister of Education) petitioned Auckland Transport to hurry up and fix a dangerous roundabout in her community – featuring raised crossings on all four legs as a vital safety feature for young and elderly people.

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In the petition, Stanford pointed out:

This roundabout causes safety concerns for residents of Aria Bay Retirement Village and users of the RSA, Browns Bay Bowling Club and Browns Bay Taiaotea Kindergarten who need to cross at this very busy intersection. Those affected, and travellers alike, have experienced several near-misses and are very concerned a fatal accident could happen at any time.

Updated to add: as noted by a commenter (thanks!) Stanford has also successfully advocated for a 30kph speed reduction at a dangerous bend outside a rest home in her electorate. Bravo!

And yet, as drafted, her colleague’s speed-setting rule would ban this as an option – even though plentiful 30kmh zones already exist, given it’s the recognised safe limit for pedestrians and other vulnerable people on the streets. It’s not too late to adapt to the evidence.  

Page 15 in the East Coast Bays newsletter Coastlines, August/ September 2024. The local MP reports on successfully advocating for footpath repairs, advancing fixes to a crumbling seawall, and persuading Auckland Transport to install a 30kmh speed reduction on Valley Road to address local concerns about safety at a sharp corner. The column concludes: “If you need assistance with a Government Agency, my team is here to help.”

To be clear: this is not a “gotcha” – it’s a “what gives??” These two National MPs, and likely others now in government, have shown exemplary leadership by advocating for the needs of vulnerable – indeed, precious – people in their community. This is moral advocacy. So it must be gutting for those communities to now witness the backtracking.

The good news – for the people of Browns Bay, at least – is that Auckland Transport did hurry up and build a better roundabout at Beach Rd and Bute Rd. It’s there now, connecting locals safely to shops, apartments, the bowling club, a kindergarten and several bus stops. And surely some of the credit for this goes to the local National MP.

The roundabout in question, captured by Google Streetview in 2023

The (political) risks of culture wars over safe streets

However! Browns Bay kindergarteners and bowling-club silver foxes can’t relax just yet.

What’s particularly shocking about the current direction of travel by the coalition government on local streets and local decisions, is not just that they’ve axed funding for transformative local fixes like this one. It’s that they’ve specifically enabled funding to REMOVE transformative local fixes like this one!

A screenshot of a section of the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport 2024: it specifies no funding in the Local Roads Improvements activity class is to be used on raised crossings and other multimodal or safety improvements – unless for the purposes of removing them. Because, says the minister, they “inconvenience motorists”.

Let’s be clear. This is highly unusual stuff, as policy-making goes. But it does fit the pattern of this government seeking to undo local choices it objects to, regardless of the cost of doing so. See also: compulsory reversion to unsafe urban speed limits, now called out by international road safety experts (and compulsory referenda on Māori representation on local councils, and more).

You have to wonder what freshly minted government MPs make of this mismatch between their duty to local advocacy, and these centralised diktats that undo local projects. It must likewise be uncomfortable for senior Nats coaxed out of retirement and/or installed on boards to praise and/or oversee programmes that undermine work they once proudly extolled for its social and economic value. What price a legacy?

Simon Bridges and young transport superheroes launching Lightpath/ Te Ara i Whiti, in December 2015. A big day! Image: Waka Kotahi the NZ Transport Agency
Then Prime Minister John Key and Minister of Transport Simon Bridges earning favourable coverage of their Urban Cycleways Programme at the opening of the (interim) Quay St cycleway, July 2016. Since upgraded, this is one of the busiest bike routes in Auckland. Image: Greater Auckland.

This is a government seriously at odds with itself, and its history – and also, its future.

Because, the thing that really puzzles me is: almost all of these now-cancelled community-led projects like local safety, public transport and active modes would have been delivered just in time for smiling candidates to cut ribbons in the run-up to the next election

In other words: cancelling all these small local shovel-ready projects isn’t just harmful to the communities that asked for them. At a really basic level, it’s a form of political self-harm.

.In purely expedient political terms, these are really easy wins. They demonstrate the beneficence of government, and generate appealing photo opportunities like the ones above, all over the motu. Most people likely won’t recall who started something nice, but they will remember who delivered it.

Those young superheroes who biked the pink path with Simon Bridges? They’ll remember that as a big day.

He’s now chair of Waka Kotahi NZTA, overseeing a Grinchy government agenda set by a guy who’s cancelling crossings at places where kids have been harmed, making public transport costlier for young people, starving cities of “frills” like safe crossings, rain gardens, comfortable bus shelters and bike networks…and turning a blind eye to climate.

And they’re now old enough to vote. What is the political end-game of this culture war nonsense?

Graph from “Climate Worriers“: a March 2021 interactive story for Stuff by Eloise Gibson with data-vis by Kate Newton. It shows how climate concern is increasing, most dramatically amongst younger people.

Reality check

What gives me confidence that this is probably just an odd (albeit international-headline-grabbing) blip in our usually quite sensible governing class, is the certainty that most people actually want things this government calls “nice-to-have.”

The clue is in the name. It’s nice to have quieter streets. To be able to safely cross the road to a bus stop or your local shop. To feel free to let your kids walk, bike or scoot to school or the dairy. To be able to relax and read the news on a bus rather than sit seething in traffic. To not fret about a family member or pet being taken out by a speedy rat-runner. To hop on a bike and get to work exactly on time, every day. To opt for an e-bike as your second car. To catch a bus to the shops and back again.

All these things are nice, normal and neighbourly – be wary of anyone who’s trying to tell you otherwise. They might be taking advantage of the fact we tend to underestimate support and overestimate opposition on progressive things like climate action – and we’re primed to mistake a loud minority opinion for the majority.

Thankfully, last week RNZ and even the NZ Herald aired some basic facts about investing in bike networks. Contrary to Simeon Brown’s reckons, New Zealanders are by no means “sick and tired” of cycleways. Indeed, those of us who live in cities, are more likely to be sick and tired of not having cycleways!

The most recent NZTA/ Waka Kotahi stats are very clear on this. (Quick, download ’em, lest they disappear!)


So, what can we do now?

This bizarre central government funding arrangement is pretty much locked in for the next couple of years. The temptation may be to cry or rage, and both are totally valid reactions! We can also channel that energy to keep talking about this stuff with friends, family, workmates.

  • Point out that these policies are highly peculiar, and well out of step with our peer nations, to the point they’re a bit embarrassing.
  • Point out the Minister is wrong when he claims full support for defunding back-to-basics fundamentals, like footpaths and safe crossings.
  • Discuss how messed up it is to say you’re “helping New Zealanders get where they’re going” by making it more dangerous for New Zealanders to cross the road to school or ride a bike to work. That’s incoherent.
  • Ask why parties in government are pouring dollars into social media posts designed to rark up antagonism towards people just trying to get where they’re going on our streets. That’s not cool, New Zealand’s too small for that.
  • Keep reminding everyone that this government’s take on safety and transport choice don’t even stack up by their own standards. We all know there’s nothing less productive than a road closed for hours to mop up after yet another crash. Or city streets full of traffic because people have no choice but to add another car to the jam.

Also, keep talking about it with your elected representatives. Local elections are next year; national ones the year after. It’s never to soon to make your feelings known.

  • If your council has targeted rates for safe streets and/or climate-friendly transport projects (kia ora, Tāmaki Makaurau!), you may be lucky enough to see good projects continuing to roll out. Keep tabs on what’s happening – send congrats when good things are built, and if work slows down, ask why.
  • Drop a polite line to your MP, whatever their political stripe. Describe what your community needs, and ask for their help in procuring it. If, like Erica Stanford or Tim Costley, they’ve been advocating on your behalf – thank them!
  • Thank them for their advocacy even – or especially – if plans have just been cancelled by their transport minister colleague. Ask how they personally plan to protect what’s been achieved, and progress what’s needed. These are reasonable questions. Plus, politics is a merry-go-round and you never know who’ll be next Minister of Transport.

In each case, share your own stories – because they’re true, and generally more persuasive than bare stats.

And above all, hold onto this: it’s nice, normal and neighbourly to want – and to receive – stress-free streets and heaps of good transport choices. These things cost a fraction of the total transport budget. They deliver overdue fixes to historic problems. They set us up well for future generations. And they just make sense.

Normal clothes, helmets on, wanting cycleways: early uptake of the in-progress Meola Road cycleway in early August 2024. In the distance, and behind the photographer, raised crossings for safe access to schools, MOTAT and the zoo, sports fields, a nature reserve, a dog park, bus stops, and the new bike path. Nice, normal. (Photo: Jolisa Gracewood)
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39 comments

  1. I find the lack of, or death of, localism in New Zealand to be very odd indeed. I don’t know why any government minister would busy themselves with the topic of what the specific speed limit on a specific local road under the control of a local council should or shouldn’t be. A minister who’s mandade includes Transport, Energy, Local Government and central goverment’s relationship with Auckland shouldn’t have time for the speed limit on Pakuranga Road to be on his mind, never mind the top of his list of priorities. What other key issues are being missed whilst this is being advocated for? It’s all a bit… weird.

  2. Articles like this are so frustratingly naïve.

    The Government does things like this *precisely because it leads to outraged articles like this*, from the “wokies” whom the government hates. Making the wokies scream is their electoral strategy.

    You keep saying it’s a footbullet, but look at the polls, it’s *clearly not*. The broad public *like* this vandalism. They want more of it. They are happy for their kids to be squashed outside school if it makes wokies scream!

    Once you understand that people saying “please stop, this is planetary or even literal suicide” just makes them go HAHAHAHAHA I WILL DO THE THING HARDER – and gives them a 5 point bounce in the polls – we might be able to fight this properly – by no longer even trying to win over the people like this, but by *removing their power* to stop good things happening.

    1. But I don’t think Jolisa is concerned about Simeon going Hahaha etc. She’s not writing for him. She’s reminding moderate readers that the man is an outlier within National, and that there’s ground to be gained if everyone brings into their conversations how unreasonable and damaging his actions are.

      1. “the man is an outlier within National,”

        An “outlier” who has the power and whom no-one can do anything to stop is not an outlier, he’s a leader. Trump is an “outlier” in the Republican Party – or at least he was, until he began to set the agenda.

    2. “ we might be able to fight this properly – by no longer even trying to win over the people like this, but by *removing their power* to stop good things happening.”

      Guys, this is progressive authoritarianism in a nutshell. If you try this not only will you sell out your soul, you will induce even greater public pushbacks down the line.

      1. Well “progressive moderateism” isn’t exactly preventing right-wing pushback at the moment, now is it? Daphne recognizes that the right wing does not exist or debate in good faith; they are out only to protect what’s theirs and they get sociopathic pleasure out of punching down and leveraging tribalism in order to do so. If we try and play nice with them they will continue to kick over our toys, rub our noses in the dirt, and have their way.

    3. The direction we are heading won’t change without people calling these things out. Articles like this are exactly what’s needed. More please!

    1. Sums up National perfectly. I want everyone to slow down in my neighbourhood but I want to be able to drive as fast as possible through everyone else’s.

      1. Rather like their attitude to motorways. We wouldn’t want them in our neighbourhood but we’re more than happy to bulldoze them through anyone else’s.

    2. I live in the ECB electorate. I didn’t vote for Erica but she’s a good local MP (less so now that she’s a minister I guess). She seems sensible and engaged and makes a lot of her colleagues look pretty dim by comparison.
      Personally I think she’ll be PM sooner rather than later.

  3. To ask an extremely personal question of this Minister…does he have children?

    Because he clearly has complete disregard for human life, health, and quality of life.

    Here in the greatest city of our little motu, we need more quality apartments, built in proximity to excellent transport hubs, and investment in keeping us all safe, of which pedestrian prioritising crossings are in important part.

    The Minister claims to be from the Eastern Area of our city, which has been historically under-served by public transport, which perhaps explains why he is so motorcar normative.

    He is fifteen years younger than me, and I am an anti wheeler…I believe that the invention of the wheel was evil, and everything that has followed is leading us to our doom. This is an extreme point of view, I acknowledge that, but I am not a Minister, in the government nor a church, so I am entitled to my simpleton theories.

    Putting a person in charge of our future who really has no idea what that signifies is a very worrying sign for our democracy.

    The damage that he has the power to apply during these three years could cost us thirty years afterwards, and for me that is probably my lifespan.

    But my kids are only 7 and 5, and they deserve a better world than that which they have been born into, through no fault of their own.

    bah humbug

    1. Does having children make you think differently, I think not.

      Some of the worst behaviours I see are parents with kids using their massive SUV to take their children 500 meters down the road to the school gate creating congestion, pollution and laziness (and unhealthy lifestyles).

  4. Seems like the National party are at odds about what transport policies they really do support, as each MP has different concerns about different parts of the areas they are elected to serve.

    But when it all comes to passing bills, all they know how to do is toe the party line.

    1. Or a counsellor to support the bereaved. Or a physical therapist to help the seriously injured…

      Or to get really active in letting the politicians and bureaucrats know how unwelcome Simeon’s destruction is. It’s the bureaucrats in really struggling to understand.

  5. If all this is true then surely the next election will be a huge change? Unfortunately it sounds like the public has egged the govt on to do this vandalism as pointed out by Daphne. The recent consultation on speed limits also aligns with the theory that the public do not care about safety majority are pro reversing speed limits since 2020.

  6. Thanks for the post – but futile with Mr Brown stating 65% support for faster.

    Shout out to David Cliff and the Global Road Safety Partnership for pulling together 100 transport professionals, Academics and their open letter to the minister and PM.

    “New Zealand must continue its commitment to evidence-based, life-saving road safety policies. To do otherwise would put lives at risk and violate the international promises we have made to protect our citizens on the roads.”

    https://www.grsproadsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Open-Letter-draft-Speed-Rule-16Sept24.pdf

    1. Well said south Auckland rules, I question David’s comment. “NZ must continue”. We stopped evidence based a long time ago back when Labour also abandoned the slower speeds policy. Unfortunately letters like that are a waste of time as if the govt is going to back down now they have so deeply committed to reversing Labours blanket speed reductions.

      1. Despite what Simeon Brown says, Labour did not do “blanket” speed restrictions.

        But his proposal is to roll back all speed limits to what they were in 2020, with zero analysis, is absolutely blanket; made worse by the requirement to do a full BCR analysis on all subsequent reversion to the current status quo.

        1. Mike,appreciate what you’ve been told but Labours policy whether or not they intended it to be was absolutely blanket. What it actually did was destroy our 50 and 100 default limits effectively forcing urban streets within scope of speed reductions to go down to 30kmh and rural to 80 max, NZTA only backed down in Northland because they knew if they blanketed 80k limits across the whole network people would riot. So what if his approach is blanket he campaigned on reversing them all as a blanket approach there is nothing wrong with that. I’m confused as to why the main complaint I keep hearing is “they weren’t blanket” why does it matter, forget about the wording for a second the rule quite clearly states reverse most urban and some rural speed limits. The word blanket is simply one way to describe it. Had a BCR been required for the original rule this would’ve saved us a lot of time instead they angered the public by not listening and AT deliberately lowering limits even where safety wasn’t a factor just because they could.

        2. We had 30kmh and 80kmh speed limits long before Labour came into power. The only change was to the approach to getting these changes made.

          If there are concerns with some of the bigger changes, such as the Napier-Taupo Rd and Rotorua Lakes to Awakeri then the government could change these back tomorrow (oddly they haven’t given they’re nearly a year in now).

          Making the New Plymouth District Council reconsult on the 30kmh CBD speed limit just to keep it after consulting on it a few years ago is absurd and a complete waste of my rates. If people really didn’t like it they would have thrown our council out in 2022.

          It makes a mockery of the government’s claim of making more local decisions local.

  7. Cornwall Park District School is also still waiting for a pedestrian crossing at the gate on Greenlane West Rd! This has supposedly been in the pipeline for years. Why do I suspect it will take a serious accident or death of a child before this will finally get done 🙁

    1. Sometimes I fear it won’t. The utter disdain the ruling caste has towards younger people (particularly Gen Z, the ‘pulling up the ladder behind them’ of older generations when it comes to housing and fair pay) and the tendency in western culture to treat children like pets or dolls rather than persons of their own makes me suspect that they’d rather isolate kids into even more controlled environments than infringe on Simeon’s “divine right of driving pleasure” to go 60-70km/h past a school.

  8. Thank you Jolisa for shining a light on the gap between the Minister’s (“culture war”) thinking and what communities really want to be able to travel safely especially for trips to and from school.

    In my 12 years on council nearly every safety project I can think of came about as a result of residents demanding safety improvements – speed bumps, lower speeds, pedestrian crossings- for their local areas.

    One example is highlighted in the photo used in the post. The crossing outside Marist School came about because a mum got in touch with me about her children and her neighbour’s children not being able to travel the short distance to school independently because of the lack of a pedestrian crossing over a busy road.

    National MPs need to act now rather than wait for a child or young person to die before pushing back against Simeon Brown’s weird, heartless and evidence-free transport policies and funding.

    (great tips too in the post about what we can all do now! )

  9. This government won’t last at the current rate of change. I feel there is a voter base out there that is more Green/Labour in regards to transport but is more National socially. Act. Well they are just mental.
    The science is out on safer road design we shouldn’t have to prove the case outside every school. Schools are just the more obvious ones too.

    1. Grant that is total rubbish sorry. Many in Labour also wanted the speed reductions to be reversed and the bumps to be flattened. Not sure if you’ve seen Simeon’s recent interview but 65% support for reversing speed limits and that’s with people being told by the greens and GA to mass submit against this and normally it’s the “status quo” people who are the majority. But slow speeds are just that unpopular they are going to be tossed out in a huge fashion. The irony of AT arrogantly claiming “the status quo people will always have the majority blah blah blah” except now when the question is the other way suddenly the status quo people don’t have the majority whoops AT lied to rush in speed reductions. Sack them.

      1. Quality, this remains incoherent rambling. “Status quo” people will often be the silent majority – there is less motivation to submit a petition when you are happy with how things are. Lots of people have advocated to lower speed limits around schools, for example. Of course, that may inconvenience a few people. It may also save a few children’s lives.
        In the long run, these lower speed limits, raised crossings and ideally good bus and bicycle infrastructure would save parents (and other commuters) hours every week because kids don’t have to be dropped off at school but can go there on their own.

        Unfortunately, I also disagree with Grant that National will be done by the end of the term. In the spirit of owning the libs, many people will vote for exactly these harmful policies. If you have no convictions yourself, you can just resist all the evidence around this and “give people what they want”.
        One beautiful example is right-wing FPÖ from Austria with the same climate-change denial policies that promises Austrians “your will be done”.
        https://x.com/ColetteMSchmidt/status/1835344948872216660

        1. John we could have this argument till the cows come home but it’s one you’re not going to win for a long time. Here’s why, NZers are sick to death of 30 zones shown by about 10% of cars actually following these speed limits and 5% of those are forced by GPS tracking. Most people could not care less about slowing down to save lives this is shown by a vast majority of drivers blatantly exceeding the roadworks speed limit even when workers are about. Alex F sorry where has he been wrong on the popular front? All the evidence from elections to opinion polls to the actual consultation itself (65% want reversals) points to the fact people want to drive fast and screw the consequences. This policy is not going to stop it’s coming so brace for impact.

        2. Leppington. If the minister only asks the questions he wants, it will probably conclude to an outcome that supports his own confirmation bias.
          This Newsroom article, published today, paints a totally different story around Auckland: https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/09/18/slow-down-mr-brown/

          The actual consultation from Simeon Brown himself, doesn’t address just Auckland, it addresses everywhere in the country, particularly parts of the country that have no connection to most of the submitters. I’m not sure how to describe this as a “blanket speed” proposal any more than it already is.

        3. Alex F, what? The newsroom article does exactly what you said Simeon was doing which asks questions to support their bias. Also that’s only asking people who wanted to answer the survey which is obviously going to have a bias towards lower speeds. The reality is Simeon was extremely clear on the election campaign what would happen if you voted for them, many people chose to do that and he’s been clear it’s happening. Also what about Simeon’s questions supported any bias? All they asked feedback for was whether or not to reverse speeds at the end of the day it’s a simple yes or no question 65% chose YES. Once again who cares if it’s “blanket” what does that have to do with anything so what? All he campaigned on was against reductions he never said he wouldn’t take a blanket approach to raising them. Honestly I think you’re struggling because you know this is gaining the govt more and more votes and your speed reductions are getting less and less. Sorry once again the people of this country have had enough with lower speeds we are going back to what they were nothings going to stop that.

      2. Simeon’s only arguments against slower speeds is because they are deemed unpopular and slows the economy down. Two statements he’s made that have been debunked by close to a hundred leading advocates who have been signatories to an open letter against the speed limit reversals.

        No country in the world has ever undergone such a mass reversal of safer speed limits on roads. Traffic crashes in our country have a social cost around 4% of our GDP. Popularity contests to appease speed hungry motorists who are not interested about collective road safety won’t be so popular when the road toll (projected this year to be the lowest in a decade), starts shooting back up. This will not also cost more lives and livelihoods, it will negatively affect the economy.

  10. National would love the crossing to our school. Not only is it not raised, on a busy road and downhill so people drive fast, but AT have for some reason removed the central island and the signs and left a big area of bare road without the zebra painted to make it almost invisible. The car throughput must be amazing.
    I guess AT have no budget to fix it, its all been spent on gold paint in Grey Lynn.

    1. How many posts about where the money is actually going will it take, Jimbo?

      There’s no gold paint, in Grey Lynn or any other suburb. Footpath quality and maintenance has been sacrificed, cycle networks never built, suburb liveability stripped, in order to channel all the money to road building and to operations that favour traffic flow. As you’ve read, time and again, even the projects that are supposed to be about sustainable modes, like Eastern Busway, have dominated the budget because of planning for vehicles. They are supersized for cars and truck, indulging traffic engineers who will not budge on their misunderstandings about traffic evaporation and induced traffic.

  11. Great article, definitely feeling both emotions – rage and cry. In my workplace we are continually looking for ways to be safer, the main driver is that we don’t want to see our mates hurt, but personal accountability at a director level also helps.

    When it comes to the safety of people on our streets, roads, etc, there appears to be no accountability. We blame the driver or the pedestrian instead of really looking hard at the system that made this unsafe act occur. Holding the “owners” of the system personally accountably if the risk was not reasonably managed – targeting council executives, transport agency boards through fines and potential imprisonment could be one way to bring safety to the fore.

    Not going to hold out hope for that one. Shame that ACC is blame-free, could be another revenue stream for ACC, if they could levy NZTA based on injuries per annnum. Reduce and pay less, Increase and pay more.

    1. Indeed, moderates are responsible for the rise of the extreme right.

      “Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.
      You take a step toward him. He takes a step back.
      Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.”
      ~@JuliusGoat, March 24 2019

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