Five years to restore safer* speeds in Auckland?

Tomorrow’s meeting of Auckland Council’s Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee (TIDC) has some interesting items. One that particularly stands out for me is in the Auckland Transport update.

And it’s on the Safe Speeds Programme.

Aucklanders yearn for a return to evidence-based speeds

A year on from Auckland Transport’s mindbogglingly widespread implementation of Simeon Brown’s 2024 Speed Rule, they report that they have recently been hard at work on – and making some progress on – returning some streets and roads to more safe speeds.

Auckland Transport says it has:

• Met with all 21 local boards between March and June 2026, presenting speed limit options tailored to each board.
• Received overwhelming support for safe speeds, particularly around schools, town centres, parks and aged care, with greater acceptance of 40km/h on local roads.
• Identified over 370 priority areas covering more than 1,600 km of network

Interestingly, the work draws directly on Auckland Council’s new (and unanimously adopted) Transport Policy Statement.

And this time round, Auckland Transport’s approach looks to be using wider area plans, with more direct implementation (which is presumably quicker) for areas deemed most urgent.

• The Transport Policy Statement gives us a clear obligation to deliver safe and appropriate speed limits as a cost-effective, value-for-money strategic investment.
• We are progressing two delivery approaches: Speed Management Plans and the Alternative Method which is delivering speed limit changes on a case-by-case basis
• The lowest limit we can set is 40 km/h, with some very specific exceptions for lower speeds such as shared areas, civic spaces or beaches.
• Areas of growth and development, particularly in Franklin and Rodney, require speed limit changes to respond to changes in land use. It is the RCA’s obligation and responsibility to set safe and appropriate speed limits.

Example map given in the AT Update slides for Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee 28/7/26

It’s also notable that AT explicitly talk about Franklin and Rodney as priority areas for speed limit changes given their significant rates of Deaths and Serious Injuries, especially on rural roads.

And it is quite stark to see in writing that 40km/h is the lowest limit available to AT (or any local road-controlling authority) under the 2024 Speed Rule, when 30km/h is universally recognised as the most appropriate safe speed for urban contexts.

Arbitrarily ruling out 30km/h as an option for towns and cities is – as Simeon Brown’s Speed Rule did – is out of step with local knowledge as well as international best practice. It’s a worryingly politicised approach to something that should be a matter of science.

Safe speeds again soon? Not so fast

The report is promising to read, as it establishes general support for safer streets and an intention to get back there.

The downside is that the extremely cumbersome and lengthy process required by Simeon Brown’s rewriting of the Speed Rule means a lot of this will not happen anytime soon.

Indeed, AT estimates some local boards could wait up to five years for safer speeds, with the process taking 10-18 months per change.

Risks and challenges

• All local boards are highly engaged and agree on safe speeds around schools, but differ on preferred approaches
• Delivery to be phased by local board readiness with a focus on avoiding ‘patchwork of limits’.
• The new Speed Limit Setting Rule makes the process lengthy (10–18 months per change); with current resourcing some boards could wait up to five years for delivery.

How many people will be killed and seriously injured on our streets and in our neighbourhoods in that time?

And even then, Auckland Transport will still not be able to implement the recognised safe speed of 30km/h. (Not unless or until there’s a more rational update to the Speed Rule, which would require either a change of government, or a return to evidence-based policy by this one.)

The labyrinthine path back to logic and local preference

So, our city faces an arduous process that will burn up staff time, budget, and public goodwill, just to return to publicly favoured speeds originally achieved via years of work… which will be a bit safer, but still not the safest, and not as safe as they were before Simeon’s blanket rollback.

The ridiculousness of the situation was starkly outlined last June by Auckland Transport executives, when Councillor Shane Henderson asked what would be needed if communities wanted to reverse Brown’s blanket speed increases.

Councillor Shane Henderson: So can I just be super clear, with communities that are really concerned – and in a lot of cases it’s primary school principals, things like that, that contact me about this… We’re embarking on a consultation period. Can I get crystal clear on what a community would need to prove, to [reduce] the speeds back to where they were before the reversal? What are the checkpoints that they’ve got to meet?

Teresa Burnett, GM Transport Safety, Auckland Transport: Okay, so here’s what we need to look at, as it’s specified in the Rule. We need:

• the role and function of the road
• how the road is used, including different types of road users
• why a speed limit change is being proposed, rather than a different speed management intervention
• a cost-benefit disclosure statement, which estimates the safety impact of the proposed change, the number of and severity of crashes [and] estimated impact of the proposed speed limit change.

We also need to include estimated time impacts of the proposed speed limit change, which includes:

• current mean operating speed
• estimated mean operating speed
• and the impact of the proposed speed limit change on individual journey time and collective journey time, accounting for average daily traffic volumes.

So, when I said it’s quite a lot of information we need to gather, per road – so that’s how it’s written in the rule at the minute.

At that meeting last June, Councillor Henderson also asked if Auckland Transport would be able to refer to previous consultations – given a significant amount of work had been done to implement safer speeds in line with evidence and community support. The answer was no, all future speed changes would have to go through this new process.

And don’t forget: there’s also the cost of removing and reinstalling speed signage all over the city. As Joel McManus reported for the Spinoff recently, raising speeds per Simeon Brown’s dictate has cost millions of dollars for councils across the country: “Auckland Council put its share of the direct cost of design, construction and replacing existing signs at $2.53 million.” Expect as much again, to put them back to where they were.

So, what comes next?

As for next steps, AT says it plans to:

• Complete area-level analysis and prioritisation based on safety improvements, travel time impacts, road use and length.
• Progress Speed Management Plans (around 18 months) for six committed Local Boards. These take longer as they address whole local board areas and prepare for a three-year programme of work.
• Deliver Alternative Method changes (around 10 months) for individual roads and catchment areas. These case-by-case approaches apply to one road at a time.
• Keep local boards informed and confident, partnering with advocates and building community readiness for speed limit changes.
• Maintain momentum to avoid a patchwork of limits and continue reducing preventable deaths and serious injuries across the network.

So the next 18 months will see area-wide plans progressed for six committed Local Boards, which will then take three years to fully implement. Meanwhile, we may get some quick wins (within a year) for some individual roads and catchment areas.

All the while, staff will be working to “maintain momentum”, “partner with advocates” and “build community readiness”, helping to keep everyone confident and informed that change may be coming (back).

Long story short, it’s good to see something is happening, even given the state of the Speed Rule.

But one still thinks about how many people might be harmed on our city’s roads before the tangible changes actually appear.

Flashback: a chart from the NZ Herald 16 July 2024, on support for safer speeds.

Related coverage by Greater Auckland

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Why is the Government flooring it on unsafe speeds? (10 July 2024)

A blanket of misinformation (17 July 2024)

Speeding toward a lethal legacy (11 November 2024)

Some questions for the Government on speed limit increases (30 January 2025)

Fixing the Kafkaesque speed rule impacts in Auckland (3 March 2025)

Pressure grows for commonsense correction on safe local speeds (20 March 2025)

As AT races to raise speed limits, strange cracks appear – our report on Auckland’s bumpy rollout of Simeon’s speed raises (20 May 2025)

The (illegible) fine print: speed reversals hit train, bus, bike networks – the unintended impacts of speed reversals (22 May 2025)

Our community chooses 30km/h – a neighbourhood expresses its own preference, one sign at a time (6 August 2025)

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