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Open letter to Minister of Transport about Auckland Speed Rule
Recently, NZTA consulted the public on proposals to raise speed limits on various stretches of state highways around the country. On 16 of those stretches which are classified as urban connectors they are continuing the consultation until 14th of May on whether they should keep the speed limit lower, at the level it is now.
Carl Lintott from Christchurch was part of the panel discussion at our Walking Summit last year. He talked about the challenges of being a deafblind pedestrian with a white cane.
The final Government Policy Statement on Land Transport 2024 has now been released.
The Government has released its draft Setting of Speed Limits Rule, which rolls back many of the changes made under the previous Government that were designed to make our roads safer for everyone by reducing vehicle speeds.
It’s time to write submissions for our local government long term plans to get the changes we deserve for the places where we live.
All the good things we want need to be in these 10-year budgets, either as stand-alone items for big projects or in a funding bucket that will cover the smaller projects.
Pedestrian projects are often high-value yet low-cost items that get rolled together in transport projects with anodyne names like ‘renewals’, ‘upgrades’, ‘improvements’, ‘operations’ and ‘maintenance’.
Speed kills, and in particular, speed kills pedestrians. Reducing urban road speeds from 50 to 30 km/h hugely improves pedestrian survival rates in accidents.
With all the damage oversize vehicles, such as SUVs and double-cab utes, cause, should they be banned altogether? That was the provocative question a journalist asked us recently for her article The case to ban SUVs. And the new End Urban SUVs campaign is also focused on this issue.
Early on the morning of Walk to Work Day, 8 March, the Wellington branch of Living Street Aotearoa staffed a stand on Wellington waterfront and asked passers-by about walking to work.
Here's the statement Living Streets Aotearoa put out yesterday in response to the Prime Minister's announcement that transport emissions reductions would be made a lower priority in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle. We believe this approach is short-sighted and self-defeating. We're calling on the Government not to abandon its policies to reduce transport emissions.
Dropping The Ball On Emissions Reductions Not The Answer To Climate Resilience
Living Streets Aotearoa has joined the Vote Climate campaign because the importance of walking as climate action is a key part of our kaupapa.
Living Streets Aotearoa is calling on the Government to develop a New Zealand Walking Strategy. We are faced with many global and local issues that would be improved if more people walked more often and yet there is no coordinated action to increase walk mode share or maintain the current conditions for pedestrians. Living Streets wants to see Government step up in a coordinated cross-agency way to improve walking and the place of pedestrians in policy, plans and action to benefit society and the places we live. We urgently need a future focused Aotearoa New Zealand Walking Strategy.
The Government has released its Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) discussion document, which sets out its plans for making emissions reductions between now and 2035 and asks for help in making these plans stronger.
We've prepared a guide to making a submission on this important Plan. We make eight points that you may like to incorporate into your submissions. We want
Walk2Work Day – what the Wellington walkers said
Walk2Work Day is our national day to celebrate walking, held in March the once a year chance to say ‘ka pai’ for choosing to look after body and mind, our community and the planet. Wellington turned on one of it's bracing mornings with a blast of wind to help turn the smiles on as people walked along. Even the Minister of Transport got in on the act but missed out on breakfast!
About Us
Living Streets Aotearoa is the New Zealand organisation for people on foot, promoting walking-friendly communities. We are a nationwide organisation with local branches and affiliates throughout New Zealand.
We want more people walking and enjoying public spaces be they young or old, fast or slow, whether walking, sitting, commuting, shopping, between appointments, or out on the streets for exercise, for leisure or for pleasure.