Safe-street neighbourhoods: the role of lower speed limits

Neighbourhood streets play a vital role in making places liveable. Rather than seeing them as simply transport corridors for cars, they are important places for walking, cycling, social interactions and even playful exploration by local children. This paper argues that neighbourhood streets provide a valuable focus for a road safety intervention that is low cost and yet promises considerable benefits for road safety, neighbourhood amenity, public health and the community at large. While there is likely to be opposition to the introduction of lower speed limits in local neighbourhood streets, this paper provides evidence that such opposition is not justified. Lower speed limits in residential streets provide an important new strategy for achieving continued reductions in injury rates from road crashes in Australia. Current trials of 30km/h traffic calmed Bicycle Boulevards in Perth are already showing early signs of general community support, while such trials in Adelaide and Melbourne are imminent.

• Record URL:
  http://acrs.org.au/publications/journals/current-and-back-issues/
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/18329497
• Authors:
  • VAN DEN DOOL, D
  • Tranter, P
  • Boss, A
• Publication Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 55-63
• Serial:
  • Journal of the Australasian College of Road Safety
  • Volume: 28
  • Issue Number: 3
  • Publisher: Australasian College of Road Safety
  • ISSN: 1832-9497

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Injuries; Injury rates; Injury severity; Public opinion; Residential areas; Speed limits; Statistics; Traffic calming; Traffic control
• Uncontrolled Terms: Safe systems (road users); Safe systems (roads)
• Geographic Terms: Australia
• ATRI Terms: Injury rate; Injury severity; Local area traffic management; Public opinion; Residential area; Speed limit
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01648285
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Oct 10 2017 2:11PM