Latest / Best of Business / Chris Bishop: Transport Minister on the Government's plan to change speed limits on 38 sections of road

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Chris Bishop: Transport Minister on the Government's plan to change speed limits on 38 sections of road · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Speed them.
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  Speaker 3: It's a going back up again. From tonight, thirty eight
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  Speaker 3: sections of the State Highway network. They'll return to their
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  Speaker 3: previously higher speed limits. This will all happen by July first.
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  Speaker 3: The first to see the increase State Highway two between
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  Speaker 3: Featherston and Masterton run over the room attackers from Wellington.
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  Speaker 3: Transport Minister Chris Bishop is with us. Good afternoon, Good afternoon.
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  Speaker 3: So what's taking so some will start happening tonight. What's
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  Speaker 3: the hold up with all the others?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, it's just so that NZTA can over the next
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  Speaker 2: few weeks as they do sort of routine maintenance and
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  Speaker 2: upgrades and all the other things that they do on roads.
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  Speaker 2: They do them at the same time, which saves some
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  Speaker 2: money and makes it more efficient. But they'll all be
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  Speaker 2: done by the first of July. But we're doing that
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  Speaker 2: wire Apple one straight away because it's the one that's
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  Speaker 2: caused the most community angst and it's also the easiest
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  Speaker 2: to do because it's a long straight section of road
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  Speaker 2: and anyone who's driven it knows it's ridiculous. It's eighty
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  Speaker 2: right now. It's enormously frustrating for motorists there. So it's
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  Speaker 2: going back up to one hundred, and that will happen overnight,
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  Speaker 2: So as of tomorrow morning, you can drive on one
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  Speaker 2: hundred on that section, right.
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  Speaker 3: Fantastic, fantastic news, because I drive that quite a bit
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  Speaker 3: and they reckon you'll only get it'll only take three
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  Speaker 3: minutes off your journey. But I have to struggled to
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  Speaker 3: believe that. I think that it added much more going
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  Speaker 3: eighty k's along there.
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  Speaker 2: I was a bit surprised when I read that myself.
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  Speaker 2: I sort of thought it'd be more than three minutes.
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  Speaker 2: That's the official advice, but you know that some people's
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  Speaker 2: journeys will be a bit quicker than others will be
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  Speaker 2: a bit slower, but depending on the time of day
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  Speaker 2: and what they're driving and all that. But yeah, look,
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  Speaker 2: they definitely be a time saving.
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  Speaker 3: You know, when they come up with this advice, do
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  Speaker 3: they actually go and sit in the car and start
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  Speaker 3: the timer or do they just do a calculation from Wellington?
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  Speaker 3: Because I think that's part of the at least this
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  Speaker 3: is what the locals there think. This is part of
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  Speaker 3: the problem with this whole issue. You've got someone sitting
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  Speaker 3: in an office in Wellington or maybe Auckland mapping out
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  Speaker 3: the road and it's got so many bends and it
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  Speaker 3: can only handle eighty k's without actually going and looking
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  Speaker 3: at it.
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  Speaker 2: That has definitely been part of the problem, there's no
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  Speaker 2: question about that. So that the last government had an
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  Speaker 2: approach which was basically, speed is the only thing that matters,
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  Speaker 2: and we're just going to blanketly lower the speed limit
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  Speaker 2: all around the country. Both local roads and state highways
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  Speaker 2: and communities said hang on a minute, that there's bits
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  Speaker 2: of the road that should be a bit lower, that's fine,
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  Speaker 2: But actually this idea that you should just lower the
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  Speaker 2: whole estate highway too over in the wire Rapper for example,
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  Speaker 2: down to eighty and pretend you're making it safer, that's nuts.
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  Speaker 2: And so we've come in and said exactly right, reverse
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  Speaker 2: what they've done. And it's not to say that there
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  Speaker 2: aren't bits of roads the Napier Tapa Road, for example,
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  Speaker 2: that's another one that people get worked up about that
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  Speaker 2: there's bits of that road where the speed limit should
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  Speaker 2: go down a bit on some of the nasty corners
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  Speaker 2: and things like that. But the default to go down
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  Speaker 2: to aiming it as crazy as well. So it's the
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  Speaker 2: blanket approach that annoys people. So we're reversing all of that.
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  Speaker 3: So okay, fair enough, So it's happening from tonight. What
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  Speaker 3: about the forty eight roads were you going to consult on?
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  Speaker 3: Why do you need to consult with people? I thought
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  Speaker 3: you knew what you were doing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's forty eight roads where there's there's mixed
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  Speaker 2: community views about about the reductions, and they're also more complicated,
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  Speaker 2: so there are some nasty sections of those roads. And
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  Speaker 2: so that's besides the point I made before, where we're
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  Speaker 2: going to consult on them. And it may be that
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  Speaker 2: MZTA says the default will go back up to one hundred,
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  Speaker 2: for example, but there'll be bits where we keep the
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  Speaker 2: speed limit at a particular point, so they'll take a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a.
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  Speaker 3: Horse labour seas if anyone dies on any of these
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  Speaker 3: roads from here on out. Literally what they said is
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  Speaker 3: the blood is on your hands.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well they've got to work out what They've got
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  Speaker 2: to work out what their position is. Because chriss ship
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  Speaker 2: can started the twenty twenty three year I don't know
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  Speaker 2: if you remember this by saying he was going to
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  Speaker 2: do a bonfire of all the dumb policies from just
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  Speaker 2: sinder Ardouna. One of them was the speed limit thing.
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  Speaker 2: That's what he said they would do. Then they didn't
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  Speaker 2: actually do it. And then Kieren mcinnulty, who was the
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  Speaker 2: local MP over in the wire Rapper you know, said
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  Speaker 2: a few weeks ago, I looked m ZTA in the
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  Speaker 2: eye and they told me they couldn't raise the speed
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  Speaker 2: on it. Well, I've just done blood and what he's
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  Speaker 2: on about boll They're going to work out what the
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  Speaker 2: stance is. All three different Labour Party people have a
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  Speaker 2: different stance on us.
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  Speaker 1: I'm in a certain part of.
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  Speaker 2: The course of those Guyskets.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. Chris Bishop,
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  Speaker 3: Transport Minister from tonight. If you live in Masterton or Featherston,
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  Speaker 3: you will enjoy one hundred kilometers an hour once more
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  Speaker 3: on State Highway too.
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