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Speaker 1: Speed limits a going back up again From tonight, thirty

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Speaker 1: eight sections of the State Highway network they'll return to

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Speaker 1: their previously higher speed limits. This will all happen by

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Speaker 1: July first. The first to see the increase State Highway

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Speaker 1: too between Featherston and Masterton run over the room attackers

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Speaker 1: from Wellington. Transport Minister Chris Bishop is with us. Good afternoon,

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Speaker 1: Good afternoon. So what's taking So some will start happening tonight.

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Speaker 1: What's 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 want one hundred

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Speaker 2: on that section, right.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic fantastic news, because I drive that quite a bit

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Speaker 1: and they reckon you'll only get it'll only take three

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Speaker 1: minutes off your journey. But I have struggled to believe that.

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Speaker 1: I think that it added much more going eighty k's

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Speaker 1: 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 a bit more than

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Speaker 2: three minutes. That's the official advice, but you know, some

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Speaker 2: people's journeys will be a bit quicker and others will

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Speaker 2: be a bit slower, but depending on the time of

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Speaker 2: day and what they're driving and all that. But yeah, look,

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Speaker 2: definitely be a time saying.

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Speaker 1: You know, when they come up with this advice, do

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Speaker 1: they actually go and sit in the car and start

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Speaker 1: the timer or do they just do a calculation from Wellington?

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Speaker 1: Because I think that's part of the at least this

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Speaker 1: is what the locals there think. This is part of

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Speaker 1: the problem with this whole issue. You've got someone sitting

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Speaker 1: in an office in Wellington or maybe Auckland, mapping out

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Speaker 1: the road and it's got so many bends in it,

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Speaker 1: you know, it can only handle eighty k's without actually

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Speaker 1: going and looking 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 you know,

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Speaker 2: lower the whole estate highway too over in the wire

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Speaker 2: Rapper for example, down to eighty and pretend you're making

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Speaker 2: it safer, that's nuts. And so we've come in and said,

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Speaker 2: exactly right, reverse what they've done. And it's not to

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Speaker 2: say that there aren't bits of roads. You know, take

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Speaker 2: the Napier Taupo Road for example. That's another one that

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Speaker 2: people get worked up about that there's bits of that

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Speaker 2: road where the speed limit should go down a bit

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Speaker 2: on some of the nasty corners and things like that.

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Speaker 2: But the default to go down to aiming it as

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Speaker 2: crazy as well. So it's the blanket approach that annoys people.

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Speaker 2: So we're reversing all of that.

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Speaker 1: So okay, fair enough, So it's happening from tonight. What

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Speaker 1: about the forty eight roads were you're going to consult

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Speaker 1: on Why do you need to consult with people? I

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Speaker 1: thought you knew what you were doing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's forty eight roads where there's the 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.

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Speaker 1: A horse Labour says if anyone dies on any of

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Speaker 1: these roads from here on out, literally what they said

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Speaker 1: is the blood is on your hands. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, they've got to work out what They've got to

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Speaker 2: work out what their position is. Because Chris hip Can

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Speaker 2: started the twenty twenty three year I don't know if

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Speaker 2: you remember this by saying he was going to do

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Speaker 2: a bonfire of all the dumb policies from just sinder Arduna.

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Speaker 2: One of them was the speed limit thing. That's what

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Speaker 2: he said they would do, then they didn't actually do it.

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Speaker 2: And then Karen McNulty, who was the local MP over

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Speaker 2: in the wire Rapper you know, said a few weeks

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Speaker 2: ago I looked m ZTA in the eye and they

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Speaker 2: told me they couldn't raise the speed on it. Well,

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Speaker 2: I've just done blood and what he's on about blood,

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Speaker 2: well they've got to work out what their stances. All

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Speaker 2: three different Labour Party people have a different stance on us,

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Speaker 2: a certainlos part on the course of those guys.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. Chris Bishop,

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Speaker 1: Transport Minister from tonight. If you live in Marsterton or

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Speaker 1: Featherston you will enjoy one hundred kilometers are now once

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Speaker 1: more on State Highway too. For more from Heather Duplessy

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Speaker 1: Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd be from

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Speaker 1: four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.