TO: Chair and Members
Petone Community Board
FROM: Kent Thaw
DATE: 28 November 2022
SUBJECT: School Speed Zones/ Petone
Purpose of Memorandum
· To provide members information regarding interim Speed Management Plan for schools in the Petone Community Board district.
· To provide an update on Council’s approach to engaging and working with schools and relevant stakeholders to set new speed limits in school zones.
|
That the Committee receives and notes the information. |
Background
1. The new Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2022 (the Rule) came into force on 19 May 2022.
2. Waka Kotahi consulted on the proposed draft Rule in 2021 and used feedback from 325 submissions to further refine the Rule including changes to the roles for coordination and certification of speed management plans, and in the timing and categorisation of school speed limit changes.
3. The Rule enables a new process to support road controlling authorities with setting new speed limits and takes a whole-of-network approach where decisions about safety-related infrastructure improvements, speed limit changes and safety camera placement are made together.
4. It also supports the transition to slower speeds around schools to improve safety and encourage more people to use active modes of transport for their journeys to and from school.
5. Speed plays an undeniable role in the horrifying numbers of people being killed or seriously injured on New Zealand’s roads.
6. In Lower Hutt school zones, there were approximately 4,296 crashes in the last five years, and speed was the main cause in 593 of them according to the Crash Analysis System (CAS).
7. Even when speed does not cause the crash, it is what will most likely determine whether anyone is killed, injured, or walks away unharmed from that crash.
8. 665 crashes occurred around school pick up/drop off hours (8am to 9am & 2:30pm to 3:30pm), and speed was the main cause in 61 of those crashes.
9. In Petone, there were 462 crashes in school zones in the last five years.
10. The numbers above exclude all unreported crashes and near misses.
11. The reduction of speed limits to reduce the impact of crashes is especially necessary on streets and roads around schools where crashes are relatively harder to prevent due to the unpredictable nature of the environment as well as the presence of vulnerable road users in those areas.
12. The Rule requires road controlling authorities to have 40% of school speed limit changes completed by 30 June 2024, with the remainder completed by 31 December 2027, and these changes must be built into speed management plans.
13. Officers have carried out a speed review for roads around schools in the Petone Community Board area. The review has resulted in a proposal to reduce to a 30km/h fixed speed limit for the streets and roads where people are already driving at the average speed of approximately 30km/h.
14. For streets and roads where the average speed is higher than 30km/h, we have looked at the traffic volumes of the streets.
15. Streets with high traffic volumes (above 8,000 Vehicles per day) are recommended to have variable speed limits while streets with low traffic volumes (low movement function) are recommended to have fixed 30km speed limits with the addition of infrastructure to help people drive at 30km/h speed limits.
16. The data from speed reviews, together with input from stakeholders, will be helpful in deciding which roads are more suitable for fixed 30km/h speed limits, and which roads are more suitable for 30km/h variable speed limits.
17. Speed reviews show that most roads in Petone have current operating speeds of around 30km/h.
18. Figure 1 below shows the proposed speed reduction locations near Petone Central School and Sacred Heart School:
______ Fixed 30km/h Speed Limits
______ Fixed 30km/h Speed Limits with Engineering Intervention
19. Figure 2 below shows the proposed speed reduction locations near Wilford School:
______ Fixed 30km/h Speed Limits
______ Fixed 30km/h Speed Limits with Engineering Intervention
20. The Table below summarises the traffic context and proposed interventions in the school speed zones (Petone).
|
Road Name |
School Name |
Mean Operating Speed (km/h) |
Traffic Volumes (AADT) |
Fixed/ Variable |
Engineering Intervention (EI) |
|
Bracken Street |
Wilford Primary School |
28 |
200 |
Fixed |
None |
|
Britannia Street |
Petone Central School |
32 |
5,200 |
Fixed |
None |
|
Sacred Heart School (Petone) |
32 |
1,700 |
Fixed |
None |
|
|
33 |
5,200 |
Fixed |
None |
||
|
Buick St East |
Petone Central School |
11 |
700 |
Fixed |
None |
|
Buick St West |
Petone Central School |
14 |
5,700 |
Fixed |
None |
|
Elizabeth Street |
Petone Central School |
16 |
1,300 |
Fixed |
None |
|
21 |
500 |
Fixed |
None |
||
|
14 |
1,300 |
Fixed |
None |
||
|
Jackson St |
Petone Central School |
29 |
6,800 |
Fixed |
None |
|
30 |
5,400 |
Fixed |
None |
||
|
30 |
5,400 |
Fixed |
None |
||
|
Kensington Ave |
Petone Central School |
32 |
1,000 |
Fixed |
None |
|
30 |
1,500 |
Fixed |
None |
||
|
Kirks Avenue |
Petone Central School |
25 |
1,700 |
Fixed |
None |
|
Manchester St |
Wilford Primary School |
23 |
700 |
Fixed |
None |
|
Richmond Street |
Sacred Heart School (Petone) |
28 |
400 |
Fixed |
None |
|
23 |
600 |
Fixed |
None |
||
|
20 |
6,700 |
Fixed |
None |
||
|
Tennyson St |
Wilford Primary School |
13 |
700 |
Fixed |
None |
|
William Street |
Wilford Primary School |
30 |
800 |
Fixed |
EI |
|
Latimer Way |
Petone Central School |
<30 |
<100 |
Fixed |
None |
|
Huia St Petone |
Petone Central School |
27 |
1,000 |
Fixed |
None |
|
Atiawa St |
Petone Central School |
19 |
800 |
Fixed |
None |
Consultation
21. Schools, residents, and other stakeholders such as emergency services are currently being consulted on the results of speed reviews to understand the impacts in relation to the areas of 30km/hr school speed zones.
22. The consultation is open from 5 December 2022 until 5 February 2023. The consultation materials will be tabled at the meeting on 5 December 2022.
There are no appendices for this report.
Author: Kent Thaw
Road Safety Coordinator
Reviewed By: Bob Hu
Traffic Engineering Manager
Approved By: Jon Kingsbury