Source: Radio New Zealand
Transmission Gully. RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Transmission Gully will move to a 110km/h speed limit from next week.
The 27km stretch of State Highway 1 was opened in 2022, with the government saying it was designed and built to support higher-speed travel.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the road was a critical transport link for Wellington and Kāpiti, and carried around 22,000 vehicles a day.
“Since opening in 2022, Transmission Gully has recorded low crash rates, with no deaths despite more than 150 barrier strikes. Safety features, including two lanes in each direction and a flexible median barrier between opposing lanes help reduce the risk of death or serious injury in a crash,” he said.
Bishop said during public consultation in 2025, 92 percent of the 2061 submissions supported raising the speed limit.
The 4.6km Raumati Straights section of State Highway 1 will remain at 100km/h, before the speed limit returns to 110km/h at the Kāpiti Expressway.
Bishop said while Raumati Straights was consulted on, technical assessments showed the section did not meet the minimum safety and design requirements for raising the speed limits.
He did not rule out increasing the speed limit in the future, but it would require “significant investment in safety improvements.”
The changes will take effect from 12:01am on Monday, February 16.
The highway stretch has had a chequered history, with its completion date pushed out from 2020 to 2022.
The initial expected cost of $850 million also blew out to $1.25 billion.
Some sections of the highway have had to be rebuilt because the initial chip-sealing work was never completed
The road was built under a Public Private Partnership, with the builders of the road taking the New Zealand Transport Agency to court over a dispute about unfinished construction and quality checks. The matter was eventually settled out of court.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
