Speed

The Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2022 required Council to develop a speed management plan, including a 10-year vision for local safe and appropriate speeds, and a three-year implementation programme for applying safe and appropriate speed limits and associated speed related infrastructure.

Speed management plans take a holistic approach to network management, considering speed management alongside investment in infrastructure. Road-controlling authorities can set speed limits for roads in their jurisdictions, while also encouraging regional coordination.

The Kāpiti Coast Speed Management Plan 2023–33 [PDF 3.68 MB] was approved by Waka Kotahi in November 2023. This enables Council to set the dates for when new speed limits become operable.

Our vision

Our speed management plan

The Kāpiti Coast Speed Management Plan has two parts:

• Part A covers what we’ll do before the end of 2027 – the high-benefit areas.
• Part B covers what we plan to do beyond 2027, subject to further community consultation. This includes:
• installing infrastructure along road corridors to reduce travel speeds and/or provide opportunities for pedestrians/cyclists to cross the road safely
• extending the existing buffer around schools to improve safety for students and the community, and encourage children to walk and bike to school safely.

We've adopted a staged approach to implementing the plan, focusing first on the high-benefit areas:

• streets around schools
• road corridors with an existing speed limit of 70km/h
• areas where there are high concentrations of active roads users, such as town centres, and marae.

 We are not:

• changing speed limits on state highways, as Waka Kotahi looks after these
• changing speed limits along the entire length of urban connector roads like Kāpiti Road, Mazengarb Road, Te Moana Road and Mill Road.

Over the years we've received requests from the community for traffic-calming measures and lower speed limits for specific areas and individual streets. Where a request aligned with a high-benefit area, it's been included in the three-year implementation plan. Other areas could be considered for inclusion in future speed management plans.

Our speed management plan will be reviewed every three years, and we welcome ongoing community feedback about our road network.

Implementing our plan

You'll see the following happening on our road network between 2024–27. New speed limits are now effective around 13 Kāpiti Coast schools (including one marae) and on seven roads. The change is the first stage of implementing Council's Speed Management Plan, which was consulted on and adopted in 2023.

The plan aims to make our road network safe for people of all ages and abilities to be on or around. Please note times vary from school to school, depending on their hours of operation.

Through the Speed Management Plan new speed limits are also in place on the following roads. These changes were required through the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2022 which identified priority areas for safer speeds. 

• Riverbank Road extension (70 to 60km/h)
• Valley Road South (80 to 60km/h)
• Brett Ambler Way (50 to 30km/h)
• Ngahina Street (50 to 30km/h)
• Iver Trask Place (50 to 30km).

Why variable or permanent?

Variable limits are installed on roads adjoining schools where significant increases in traffic (vehicle, cycle, and pedestrian) are generated immediately before and after school. During other periods, volumes of all traffic are low. Permanent limits are installed on roads adjoining schools where additional traffic (vehicle, cycle, and pedestrian) is generated continuously by adjacent land uses (for example, shops, transport hubs, or car parks).