Although enforcement may not be a deterrent given statistics released by police, Steffan Thomas, the city council’s transport operations manager, said co-ordinating traffic lights in some areas of the zone applied the brakes.
The lights were phased to cater for vehicles travelling at 30km/h.
“This has a big impact on making it unattractive for vehicles to travel much faster than the speed limit as they miss the block-to-block co-ordination of the traffic signals, resulting in the need for drivers to constantly stop and start,” Thomas said.
“This limits the opportunity to gain excessive speeds and encourages compliance with the posted speed limit.”
While the city council has been able to determine speed limits on roads in their jurisdiction since 2003, police are in charge of enforcement.
Police would not reveal the highest speed recorded in the 30km/h zone, fearing it would encourage thrill-seeking motorists to set a new record.
Since the zones were introduced in 2016, there have been 278 infringement notices issued for exceeding the speed limit.
More than half of the infringements (141) were recorded in 2016 before a lull in 2017 (8), 2018 (12) and 2019 (10).
Enforcement intensified last year with 107 infringements detected for the calendar year.
In 2019 the city council expanded the central city 30km/h zone to include St Asaph St, despite the majority of 737 public submissions railing against the limit being reduced.
Montreal St on the one-way system produced the highest number of speeding infringements recorded from 2016 to last year: 30.
Ferry Rd (28), Wainoni Rd (26), Sumner’s Marriner St (22) and Tuam St (17) make up the city’s top five locations.
Although the 30km/h zones are unpopular with some motorists Thomas insisted they were necessary, and effective.
“A 30km/h speed significantly improves the chance of surviving a crash for all road users, including pedestrians and cyclists,” he said.
Figures indicated reported injury crashes had reduced 25 per cent in the 2-1/2 years after the zones were introduced, compared to the 2-1/2 years prior.
