Many people think it is normal that cars and trucks can zoom along at 50 on an otherwise quiet residential street or through a busy Main Street. Many of us have grown up thinking this is just a fact of life. You don’t let your children play in the street, and have to closely supervise even getting in and out of the car. It is too dangerous to allow them to walk to school, or to Saturday sport, let alone ride a bike. The disabled or frail also can’t get around. Accepting this has been called ’auto-normativity’.
There is a growing awareness of alternatives however. Advocacy organizations like Better Streets and 30please have started campaigns. The NSW Government has started providing guidelines on lowering speeds, even if on a very limited basis. They have new Road User Space Allocation Policy, putting walking and cycling as highest priority in new works and private cars at the bottom of the priority list.
The trend to lower urban speeds is based on strong evidence that it saves lives, and this was the basis for many countries adopting a resolution of the UN World Road Safety Conference in Oslo in 2020. Cities like Paris and London have most of their streets set at 30 km/h (20 mph in London). At 30 km/h you have only a small chance of serious injury of death, less than 5% if hit by a car, but at 40 this increases to about 20% and at 50 it is around 50% or more.
Over the last decade there has been a move to extend 40 K speed limits to more streets, many 60 limits have become 50, and we have seen this in the Inner West. The Balmain Peninsular has been a 40 zone for more than a decade, and lately Norton and Styles Streets in Leichhardt and Pyrmont Bridge Rd have been declared 40, but residential streets running off these streets remain 50!
We say it is time to move to 30 on most if not all residential streets, Main Streets, School and park or pool or sport routes. Main arterial roads would mostly stay at 50, if they had separated walking and cycling paths. The few remaining State roads with a 60 limit, such as Livingstone Rd North and parts of Marrickville Rd and Canterbury Rd should be lowered to 40 or 50. [note added in Dec 2024, some roads have recently been reduced by TfNSW from 60 to 50].
In conjuction with lower speeds, precincts and neighbourhoods need better street design, on a suburb or precinct basis, to deter, slow or divert through traffic to major roads, as in the world leading Dutch traffic management system, and now in the Local Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) being introduced in many cities in the UK.
These systems bring new life and amenity to local precincts, and space can be found for gardens, trees, play, conversations. Bike riding and walking will be encouraged, and money saved on not having to provide separate bike paths on many streets. Amazing transformations have been realised in formerly car dominated streets and precincts. The widespread use of bicycles in The Netherlands is a result of detailed planning, design and building, with lower speeds a key measure.
References. (To be completed)
UN Resolution Oslo
Dutch road design principles.
Local Traffic Networks (LTNs).
Transport for NSW Road Space Allocation Policy.
Transport for NSW Guidelines for setting speed limits.