Reversals on blanket speed limit reductions will begin on Wednesday night, starting with State Highway 2 in the Wairarapa, and will be complete by 1 July.
The National and Act coalition agreement committed to reversing the reductions implemented under the previous Labour government.
In total 38 sections of the state highway network will be reversed back to their previous higher speed limits by NZTA over the next five months.
The state highway speed limit changes will take effect across the country in Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu-Whanganui, Greater Wellington, Canterbury, and the top of the South Island.
I’m keen for the Levin bypass too. But I heard the proposed rate for the Manawatū Gorge toll was something like $8 a trip (from what my father-in-law was saying, in-laws live in that area). They decided not to toll it but holly hell I hope the Levin one isn’t that much. Seems adding $16 a day to a commute is a bit rough.
It really depends on how much time it shaves off the trip.
If it saves me 15 minutes, it’s worth $8 to my boss.
You make a good point, the more I think about it the more I think it is probably fine. There will always be an alternate route (that’s the govt’s policy), and trucks are required to use them. $8 to them is nothing on a load of goods worth tens of thousands.
Ok, I admit it’s probably a fair price to balance the cost of collecting. Also nice that if you’re commuting from Levin you miss it, and so unlike the Manawatū gorge proposal, you shouldn’t hit any/many commuters.