Little by little

Auckland Transport is beginning to plan changes to our roads that aim to protect our pedestrians and cyclists. AT say the majority of road deaths and serious injuries occur on 50km/h urban roads. One of the ways they are aiming to improve this, is by implementing the international road safety project ‘Vision Zero’.

Vision Zero

Vision Zero was first implemented in Sweden in 1997. The aim of Vision Zero is to achieve a road system with no fatalities or serious injuries involving road traffic. Sweden has managed to half its road toll in the 20 years since adopting the scheme. Auckland Transport is hoping they can reduce our road traffic harm by 60% over the next ten years with our own version of Vision Zero.

Reducing Speed

While a ‘whole suite’ of changes are to be implemented under the Vision Zero project, AT is currently on the full offensive about lowering speed limits. They are planning to lower speed limits on 700km of Auckland roads, which is about 10% of Auckland’s total road network. Following the success of the lowering of the limit on Ponsonby Road, similar roads such as Tamaki Drive in Mission Bay, and Broadway in Newmarket are set to follow suit. These roads are likely to change to 30km/h or 40km/h.

Little by little

The proof is in the pudding for Ponsonby Road. At the time, the reduction in speed along that road was a point of contention and took our beloved bureaucrats a number of years to implement. But now we wouldn’t have it any other way. By lowering speed limits around the city we are little by little worshipping ‘the car’ less and less.

By valuing the safety of the people who live in our streets and communities, rather than the ability for a car to get from A to B quickly we are changing our society. When you see city's like this one in Spain, you can see why the shift in behaviour could be worth it.

Also worth noting, their mayor has been in office for 12 years, so he must be doing something right!