Some roads will soon have speed limits of just 10km/h after Auckland Transport (AT) announced widespread changes to permitted speeds in the city of sails.
AT announced on Thursday more than 1600 roads, or 19 percent, will have speed limits reduced to increase safety and lower harm.
The changes are mainly focused around schools, rural marae, rural roads, town centre roads and residential roads.
Some of the most extreme cuts will see speed limits dropped from 50km/h to 10km/h. Meanwhile, others are dropping from 100km/h to 40.
The roads dropping to 10km/h are all in New Lynn and include McCorquindale Ln and McCrae Way which are both dropping from 50km/h.
Totara Ave is also dropping from 50km/h to just 10km/h between Great North Rd and McCorquindale Ln. The next slowest new limit is Shelly Beach Pde between Pah Rd and the eastern end of the road, which is dropping from 50km/h to just 20km/h.
Many other roads across the city are dropping from 50km/h to 30km/h while a huge number of 100km/h roads are changing to 60, 50 or even 40km/h.
The impacted roads are spread across the city and include areas in the central city, North Shore and west and south Auckland.
AT programme director Nathan Cammock told AM on Friday most of the roads impacted are dangerous or close to schools.
Cammock said the changes are aimed at improving safety on the city's roads. He said speed is a major factor in serious road crashes across the country.
"Speed is a major factor to road trauma and that's similar in Auckland, so around 70 percent of crashes in Auckland and injuries have speed as a factor.
"On these specific roads, the roads where we see the best benefits for speed reductions and tailoring speed limits are the traditional 100km/h and 50km/h in our rural areas. Where we have made changes in the past those fatalities in those rural areas have dropped by half so we are hoping that will be the same for these changes."
But Cammock couldn't reveal exactly how many injuries or crashes had happened on the affected roads in the past year.
"It's not just about focusing on those especially high-risk roads, they are a focus but we are also really trying to lean into where there is community demand for changes like around my local school where there may not have been historical crashes but we know speed is a factor and speed makes people feel unsafe."
He said AT is expecting the changes to reduce crashes and deaths though.
"On the roads where we have approved changes, we are expecting about 15 deaths or serious injuries, really serious road trauma. We are expecting about 15 people to not have that trauma as a result of these changes and we are expecting that every year into the future."
He said the changes, on average, will add about five minutes per hour of the journey in the rural areas.
"In urban areas, some of the travel time is a little bit slower, maybe a couple of percent. Some of it is a little bit faster when speed limits are dropped because people tend to drive a lot smoother so you get less acceleration and braking and you get more people travelling more consistently.
"In the rural areas… typically you can expect the speed changes to add five minutes per hour of the journey so it's about six to eight percent so there is a little bit of a tradeoff for having a lot of lives saved in our rural areas."
A full list of the changes can be found here.
