Former head transport adviser calls speed limit plan ‘mystifying’

Transport expert Simon Kingham has slammed the plan to lift speed limits as anti-evidence, anti-communities and anti-safety.
When Transport Minister Simeon Brown released his draft Government Policy Statement for Land Transport in March, he said: “GPS 2024 will also include investment in infrastructure to reverse recent speed-limit reductions where it is safe to do so, enabling people to get to where they need to go quickly and safely.” 
However, the final version of the Statement, which came into effect on July 1, is notably different: “GPS 2024 also includes investment to reverse recent speed-limit reductions, enabling people to get to where they need to go quickly and safely”. 
Brown said the omission of the words ‘where it is safe to do so’ did not change anything. 
“I’m required to consider safety when signing those rules. That’s what’s required under the legislation and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing. 
“If the objective was simply to increase safety alone, we would just have a speed limit of zero. But ultimately, we need to balance things we need to make sure we take a proportionate approach.” 
Kingham said the minister could have put forward policy that achieved greater community consultation and balance, while not winding back everything. 
“If I’d still been the science adviser in government, I think I could have advised a policy that would have allowed him to meet his promise without being anti-science.  
“Which would have meant not changing things around, proper benefit cost ratios, proper community support, and actually allowing [increases] where it’s safe, particularly on some of the state highways which I think is where you actually get the time savings – in the urban areas you get tiny time savings.” 
Kingham left the ministry describing his first six years in the role as great, and the last few months “more challenging as my advice was less sought”.
He said the idea that faster travel times directly translated to greater productivity was also misguided.  
“This link between time savings and productivity is just nonsense really – they’re not the same. It’s strange and it’s a lack of understanding of some fairly fundamental transport things as well.” 
Brown would not say exactly why the wording of the policy statement had changed, but confirmed safety was a factor that had to be considered in potential speed limit reductions.  
Kingham, who was the chief science adviser at the Transport Ministry until May, said Brown was well within his powers to do what he was doing.  
“He can specify what the speed limit should be and he can specify the reasons which communities and councils can argue for lower speed limits.” 
However, he said the framework that communities had to work within, under the proposed changes, was where things came unstuck. 
“For instance he’s said you must do a benefit cost ratio on every road to demonstrate that there’s value, but is being incredibly prescriptive about what is allowed in the benefit cost ratio.  
“So he’s saying it has to only be safety and time savings … he’s ignoring pollution emissions, he’s ignoring mode shift which is a really big one because if you make a speed limit slower, you encourage walking and cycling. 
“He’s literally saying it’s just time savings versus accident rates.” 
He said the requirement meant work had to essentially start again. 
“What he seems to be saying is, you go back to 50kph in urban areas, irrespective of whether you’ve done all that already, and you have to start again, and this is what’s going to anger a lot of communities. 
“You have to go back to square one and then redo it all based on the benefit cost ratio off those two criteria. I mean, it’s very ideological.” 
This cost benefit analysis would also need to be done for every road, a cost some councils may not be able to afford, giving them no choice but to leave some roads they wanted at a lower speed limit at the higher one. 
Kingham said it would be especially difficult for communities to make their case for lower speed limits around schools that were not captured under the new rule. 
“It’s going to be really hard to do, especially when you’re excluding so many things – all these other benefits. Basically you’re going to have to demonstrate there have been crashes around the school, but only in certain hours … it’s bizarre, it’s totally anti-evidence.” 
Newsroom has previously reported that a cost benefit analysis done for rural roads would likely result in an outcome that favoured lower speed limits anyway.
Ironically the Regulatory Impact Statement provided by the Ministry of Transport to the minister confirmed there had not been time for it to conduct its own cost benefit analysis on the proposal.
“We cannot assess the specific costs and benefits of changing the 2022 Rule at an individual road or national level. The outcomes would depend on the individual roads and speed limits being assessed.” 
The statement said reversing some speed limits would result in a higher risk of crashes.
“The evidence suggests the crash risk increases (unless other mitigating measures are introduced to improve safety). The level of impact is difficult to quantify due to uncertainty about which roads would have speed limits increased.” 
But it did say the new rule would likely improve public buy-in of any changes that were made because of the enhanced consultation requirements.  
Public buy-in was a major hurdle when authorities were attempting to drop speed limits under the previous Road to Zero strategy. 
Consultation on the new speed limit setting rule closed earlier this month. Brown has promised a new rule would be in place by July next year.