Toowoomba council endorses road safety strategy, with speed limit reviews to see some streets dropped to 50km/h

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. Which roads could be affected here:

 

More Toowoomba roads could drop from 60km/h to 50km/h as part of a new council strategy to reduce crashes that costs the community $136m a year.

The Toowoomba Regional Council on Tuesday endorsed its new four-year road safety policy, which will explore a variety of actions to improve safety for all road users and prevent collisions.

The report revealed there had been nearly 1000 crashes on council-owned roads between January 2019 and June 2023, with the community cost valued at $166m for the 2022-23 financial year alone.

Among the 40 actions outlined in the new strategy was a plan to “conduct area wide reviews or trials to lower speed limits”, which would see many higher order roads dropped to 50km/h and lower order roads to either 40km/h or even 30km/h.

It comes after the state government reduced the speed limit of Ruthven St through South Toowoomba to 50km/h between Long and Alderley streets.

The speed limit has been reduced to 50 km/h on Ruthven St between Long and Alderley Sts, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

“As council, we recognise that good speed management practices contribute to road safety, mobility and amenity on public roads by providing a credible and consistent system of speed limits that are compatible with the speed environment, and largely self-enforcing,” the report said.

Other actions would see the development of critical infrastructure projects to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety, refine the priority list of black spot locations, trial new technology to improve road safety and look to redesign high-risk streets.

While the strategy was broadly supported, councillor Edwina Farquhar questioned whether the council was responsible for drivers’ poor decision-making or errors in judgment — which was evidenced in the report to be the main cause of crashes.

“I was wondering, obviously looking at dropping speeds to 50km/h, will we be looking to moving to 50km/h across our urban areas?” she asked infrastructure general manager Mike Brady.

“I just think we (as motorists) need to take more responsibility for our behaviour — I don’t know if we’re (council) responsible for people’s behaviour.”

Mr Brady said motorists should expect more speed reductions across the city, noting Queensland had adopted a mixed-speed approach to higher order local roads since the 1990s.

“Over time, you’ll generally see a reduction in speed limits across Toowoomba,” he said.

“Over the decades we’ve gotten increased populations and densities, more people wanting to use that road corridor for different things, so our behaviours need to change over time.

“There’s a lot of value in activating a street for pedestrians and the economic benefits, there is a lot of research that supports that.

“In respect to our 50km and 60km streets, Queensland in the 90s opted for a mix whereas NSW adopted a 50km approach.

“If you learn (how to drive) when streets are slower, 50km/h becomes the norm.”

Councillor Tim McMahon said while he backed the strategy, he wondered whether other elements like the phasing out of blended right turns at traffic lights were examples of a “nanny state”.

Councillor Trevor Manteufel. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Road safety and active transport spokesman councillor Trevor Manteufel said West St in Kearneys Spring and Lindsay St in East Toowoomba were likely candidates for speed drops, arguing the TRC was taking an “open-minded approach” to the issue.

“Some higher order roads or busy roads will be dropped (because) the traffic volumes are not going to get better, they’re going to get worse,” he said.

The content summaries were created with the assistance of AI technology, then edited and approved for publication by an editor.