To make our roads safer and to reduce deaths and serious injuries, the new Speed Limits Bylaw came into force on 30 June 2020.

Or search a list of all the roads that are included in the Speed Limits Bylaw 2019.

Project status: Bylaw approved - new speed limits from 30 June 2020

Project zone: Waitematā, Franklin, Rodney local board areas and on 75 other roads across the region

Project overview

Too many people are dying or being seriously injured with life-changing and life-long consequences in Auckland. In 2019, 40 people were killed on the region’s roads (30% of which were speed related deaths) and 567 people were seriously injured.

One of the most effective ways of minimising road trauma involves reducing vehicle speeds. That’s because speed determines both the likelihood of a crash occurring and the severity of the outcome.

In October 2019, the Board of Auckland Transport passed the Speed Limits Bylaw (2019). The bylaw allows AT to set safe and appropriate speeds on roughly 700km of roads in areas which pose the greatest safety risk to people.

These roads are located in the rural local board areas of Rodney and Franklin and in the urban local board area of Waitematā. 75 other roads in the following local board areas will also have new speed limits: Waitākere Ranges, Henderson-Massey, Upper Harbour, Howick, Hibiscus and Bays, Māngere-Ōtāhuhu and Papakura.

Why these roads were selected

The roads have been selected based on several criteria, namely their risk of death or serious injury as well as those with large numbers of vulnerable road users like people walking, children and the elderly. 90% of the roads we plan to reduce the speeds of are rural roads. The remaining are made up of the city centre, town centres and residential roads.

The criteria for speed reductions is dependent on the road type:

Type of road Reason for speed reductions Rural roads Approximately 90% of the total area we are reducing the speeds of are rural roads.

They have been selected because they: are either high-risk roads or close to high-risk roads

have high crash rates or are close to roads with high crash rates

have speed limits which are unsuitable – they could be winding, hilly or have unsegregated lanes

it is not possible to drive to the current posted speed due to the road’s layout

don’t have a centre median strip. We are introducing safe and appropriate speeds across areas rather than individual roads. Residential and urban roads These roads have been selected because they have: large numbers of vulnerable road users (people walking and cycling)

they’re often near schools, kindergartens and other community facilities

concerns raised by the community. Town centres and Auckland city centre These areas have been selected because: this is where the highest number of vulnerable road users are – (people walking and cycling)

population increases mean more people are walking and cycling in these areas

reducing speeds here has the greatest potential to reduce the chance of serious injuries and deaths occurring especially among vulnerable road users.

Some ‘self-explaining’ roads, or sections of roads, have been included. These are areas where the road conditions already cause drivers to travel at a lower speed – such as winding rural roads and some urban areas with speed bumps to help driver choose a safe speed.

Other initiatives we are working on to improve road safety

In addition to reviewing speed limits, we are implementing a comprehensive road safety programme that will complement lower speeds across Auckland, which includes:

Residential road safety improvements, including engineering measures like speed tables or humps, kerb buildouts and raised intersections.

Town centre safety improvements, including a combination of speed limit reductions, signage, speed tables or humps, and raised intersections.

Setting new urban traffic boundaries, with more appropriate speeds for newly developed residential areas.

Implementing safe speeds in Waitemata, Rodney, Franklin and 100 roads across Auckland region.

The wider road safety programme is partly enabled by the Regional Fuel Tax.

Read the Speed limit change progamme July interim monitoring update (PDF 355KB).

Next steps

Due to the scale of the change with new road signage and traffic calming measures being installed, the Safe Speeds Bylaw will be introduced in a phased approach. The first phase starts 30 June 2020. The second phase begins 30 November 2020 (town centres – Orewa, Mairangi Bay, Torbay) and June 2021 – town centres of West Lynn, St Heliers Bay and Mission Bay.

Public consultation

We wanted you to let us know what you think about the new speed limits we are proposing to set (by bylaw) for roads under our control. The consultation period ran from 28 February until 31 March 2019 and 11,722 submissions were received. The feedback provided has been summarised in the documents below:

View the other documents submitted to the AT Board for consideration as part of this process (AT Board Report item 13.1).

We issued a Statement of Proposal which outlines the details of our proposal to introduce a speed limits bylaw.

For more information on this project

Contact Auckland Transport