More than 200 sections of road in the Dunedin area could be affected by the government’s proposed rules about traffic speeds, a council spokesman said.
It potentially means cancelling reductions in the speed limit at places such as the Otago Peninsula, Green Island, the tertiary-education area of Dunedin, Caversham, Mornington and Māori Hill.
The government’s policy would also standardise the use of variable speed limits outside of schools, meaning lower limits would apply only at pick-up and drop-off times for pupils.
Other speed limits that were lowered through the previous government’s "blanket" reductions since January 2020 would be reversed, Transport Minister Simeon Brown has said.
The proposed new rule would ensure economic factors, including travel times, and the views of road users and communities would be taken into account when speed limits were set, alongside safety, he said.
The city council last month debated a draft submission to the government about emissions and it added in a clause saying changes in speed limits should be based on evidence.
Various pockets of the city appear likely to have their limits revised.
"At this stage we believe there are about 210 sections of road around Ōtepoti Dunedin that may be covered by the government’s new approach," a council spokesman said.
"We won’t know exactly which changes are needed until after the government finalises its requirements, but we expect our associated costs could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Changes approved for Dunedin last year were mostly in school areas, but they also applied to what the council called urban centres, such as Caversham.
The speed limit in Green Island’s Main St was brought down to 30kmh in 2021 and speed limits have been particularly contentious on the Otago Peninsula.
The arrangement of peninsula limits left motorists bewildered and led to a petition being started.
Otago Peninsula Community Board chairman Paul Pope, who started the petition, said lower limits had since gained some acceptance, but signs were in the wrong place and zones did not seem to gel with the roading environment.
