Push for 30km/h speed limit on all local streets to improve safety

Local speed limits should be slashed to 30km/h in areas frequented by children before expanding to suburban streets statewide to increase pedestrian safety and encourage walking, says an independent advisory body.

Infrastructure Victoria made the recommendation in its 30-year draft strategy after finding about seven children die on Victorian roads each year and about 300 children are seriously injured, mostly on local streets with 50km/h speed limits.

Claire Courtis-Petrusev and Iggy Petrusev with their children, Rosa and Wilbur, near Surrey Hills Primary School.Credit: Penny Stephens

On Tuesday, the advisory body will reveal its 50 priorities for the government to meet housing, transport, energy and health needs for the state’s growing population. Of these, the draft strategy says work on 43 recommendations must begin within five years. It says it has identified seven longer-term “future options”.

The report said the Victorian government “cannot build everything, everywhere, all at once”, citing rising debt and high material and labour costs. This made it more important to carefully prioritise investments and to find smarter and more efficient ways of using existing assets, it said.

The plan is updated every five years and will be open for public consultation before a final version is tabled in parliament later this year.

Infrastructure Victoria chief executive Dr Jonathan Spear, releasing the recommendations on Tuesday, said a pedestrian hit by a car at 50km/h had an 85 per cent chance of dying.

“At 30km/h, this falls to 10 per cent,” Spear said. “Changing from 50km/h to 30km/h on local streets has little effect on travel times but can make a huge difference in lives saved and injuries avoided.”

Forty-eight pedestrians and 12 cyclists died in road accidents in Victoria last year, according to Transport Accident Commission data. Elderly Victorians are more likely to die in a traffic accident, though road trauma is a leading cause of death for children aged one to 14.

The World Health Organisation has recommended speeds be limited to 30km/h on urban streets where cars and pedestrians mix. The Victorian Government Road Safety Partners – which consists of the TAC, Victoria Police and the Transport, Justice and Health departments – in 2023 told a parliamentary inquiry that lowering speeds was critical to community safety.

The Allan government is yet to respond to that inquiry, which called for speed limits to be reduced around school precincts and arterial roads with busy activity centres. It found the process for local governments to lower speeds to 30km/h was onerous and time-consuming.

Infrastructure Victoria said the government should work with councils to make the change on all streets with speed limits of 50km/h or lower, starting with those around schools, playgrounds, childcare centres and kindergartens, which Spear said were also often close to people’s homes.

“These are the easiest trips for people to switch from cars to walking and cycling,” it said. “They are more likely to do this where there are low speed limits which give greater confidence that it is safe to use local streets.”

Infrastructure Victoria did not recommend the change be made to roads with speed limits above 50km/h.

Slashing the speed limits would cost an estimated $35 million to $45 million. This would include installing new signs. The government could also improve footpaths and add crossings to build on the benefits, the advisory body said.

“Most parents are worried about traffic and road safety, and do not let their children walk or cycle alone,” Infrastructure Victoria said in its report. “Instead, they drop off and pick up their children by car.”

The government wants 25 per cent of all trips to be taken through active transport such as walking and cycling by 2030. Infrastructure Victoria also called on the state to expand protected cycling networks.

The City of Yarra last year rolled out a trial of 30km/h zones across local streets in Fitzroy and Collingwood, excluding major roads Johnston Street, Nicholson Street, Hoddle Street, Alexandra Parade and Victoria Parade.

In 2023, then-Victoria Police chief commissioner Shane Patton called the Yarra trial “ridiculous” and claimed nobody would obey the limit, despite the force forming part of the Victorian Government Road Safety Partners, which said safer speeds would save lives.

A trial is under way in part of Mildura in the state’s north-west. Warrnambool and Port Campbell also have 30km/h zones.

Victoria Walks executive officer Dr Ben Rossiter welcomed the recommendation to cut speed limits and said trials had shown drivers adjusted to the change over time.

“At safer speeds, it’s easier for drivers to see people,” Rossiter said.

Credit: Matt Golding

He said there was general community acceptance that children should be safe on all of their walk to school — not just outside the front of the gates — and that drivers slowing down made the streets safer for everyone.

Public Transport Users Association president Tony Morton also welcomed the recommendation.

Claire Courtis-Petrusev often walks with her young children, Rosa, 3, and seven-month-old Wilbur, around their neighbourhood and parks.

She understood the reasoning to reduce speed on local roads but was uncertain about its efficacy.

“I think speed and driver attention are the two factors that can keep kids safe from cars,” Courtis-Petrusev said.

“If speed limits were reduced to 30km/h, it would be so slow that people might be more susceptible to being distracted or picking up their phones.”

The parliamentary inquiry last year found that despite clear evidence to back lower speed limits, Victorians generally didn’t support them.

A 2023 survey by the RACV found only one-third of respondents supported lowering speeds, while a survey for the Office of the Road Safety Camera Commissioner found 23 per cent of respondents supported the suggestion.

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