30km/h news for Australia and New Zealand
2024
November 2024: Tugun Gold Coast, Qld: Aussie town makes major speed limit change in growing national trend. Tugun, a beach-side coastal suburb in the City of Gold Coast, has now capped speed limits to 30 kilometres per hour for the main thoroughfare. It comes after grandmother Cathy Kelly, a US national, was killed while walking home from church.
October 2024: National: Speed limit cuts needed to help fix road toll ‘crisis’. AUSTRALIA’S road toll is rising and “brave” decisions such as lowering speed limits are needed to help reach the goal of halving fatalities by 2030, a peak safety body says. “In a built up area, if you have vehicles mixing with pedestrians and cyclists then the vehicles need to be doing only 30km/h,” she said.
October 2024: Toowoomba, QLD: Council to drop speed limits on key city roads amid $136m issue. Motorists should expect more speed limit drops for key roads across Toowoomba in the years to come, as part of the council’s new road safety strategy.
October 2024: Mount Martha, VIC: Bold bid to slow Mornington Peninsula drivers to 30km/h. A Mount Martha teacher and local council candidate wants mums and dads to act as ‘parent pace cars’ and slow drivers to 30km/h, so more children will walk to school.
October 2024: Sydney, NSW: Road safety advocate pushes for movable barriers on Sydney Harbour Bridge after horror crash left two men dead. Another suggestion from President of Safer Australian Roads And Highways (SARAH) group Peter Frazer was lowering the speed limit in the city to even 30km/h to reduce the chances of collisions, protecting motorists and pedestrians
October 2024: Cottesloe, WA: Marine Parade Foreshore: Proposed speed limit change from 40km/h to 30km/h in Cottesloe floated by council
September 2024: Unley, SA: Sweeping speed limit changes proposed for Unley council area
“In urban areas, there is a desire to create liveable neighbourhoods enjoyed by people, where the safety and amenity needs of pedestrians and cyclists is a priority.
“In addition, there is generally greater recognition now across the community that speed limits are one of the key drivers affecting residential amenity, community vitality, commercial viability and most importantly safety.”
But the council also found that the average speeds along the 10 roads targeted for cuts rarely reach 50km/h.
“Of course, there may be some motorists who object, and suggest that commuting times will increase, but recent research suggests that the impact on travel time will be minimal, with slower times occurring due to traffic signal delays and right-turn queueing at non-signalised intersections, rather than because of the posted speed limit,” he said.
September 2024: Canberra, ACT
September 2024, Blue Mountains NSW: Speed limit change to improve safety on Faulconbridge service road
“The service road is a narrow, windy road with 27 residential accesses along its 460 metres and while it currently attracts relatively low pedestrian and cyclist movements, usage will increase after Blue Mountains Council was successful in obtaining a grant from Transport for NSW to design a shared path from Linden to Faulconbridge which is proposed to use the service road as a quietway.
“As a result of the review the speed limit will reduced from 50 km/h to 20 km/h to better match the existing road environment. “Blue Mountains City Council and NSW Police were consulted on this speed zone recommendation and also support the change.”
July 2024: New Zealand: The case for and against reversing blanket speed limit reductions. (1News). “Labour’s blanket speed reductions aimed to lower speed limits on many roads to improve safety. The reductions mostly targeted urban areas, school zones, and some rural roads, aiming to reduce the incidence and severity of road accidents.”
July 2024 NSW: ‘Over the top’ or a life-saving move? The push for 30km/h speed limits. (SBS News). “Sydney mayor Clover Moore said it was everyone’s responsibility to make roads as safe as they possible for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. “Not only will our streets be safer as a result of these important changes, they’ll be quieter and have less exhaust emissions,” she said.”
May 2024 – VIC: Yarra City Council green lights new 30km speed limit trial (City of Yarra)
May 2024 – NSW: 30km/h zones – the future of Aussie roads? (Herald Sun, paywalled)
March 2024 – WA: Cambridge Leads the Way to Safe Active Streets (Town of Cambridge). “Traffic calming measures were implemented, including reducing speed limits to 30km/h, aligning with the Town’s Bicycle Plan and the West Australian Bicycle Network.”
2023
Oct 2023 – Australia: Bold plan to curb rising toll on Australian roads (The Senior). “The most impactful – and politically difficult – change would be to lower speed limits across all local roads to 30km/h, a measure recently implemented in Wales.”It adds at most a few seconds to your driving trip,” Ms Stace said. “My eight year old was in fact walking to school and he did get hit by a car. Luckily the driver was going less than 30km/h. “If that driver had been going 5km/h faster, my child probably wouldn’t be alive today.”
Aug 2023 – NSW: NSW’s new speed guidelines point the way to 30km/h streets (Bicycle Network) “In an update to the NSW speed zoning standards last month, Transport for NSW included guidelines for determining and implementing 30km/h speed limits on public roads.”
Aug 2023 – NSW: Sydney council planning 30km/h city speed limit to discourage driving (Drive)
2022
Aug 2022 – WA: 30km/h speed limits for more WA streets (Bicycle Network). “The Safe Active Streets Pilot Program began in 2015 and has already developed 10 safe active streets which have seen huge increases in active transport. Based on this success, the government plans to reduce the speed limits on 11 more streets.”
