17 January 2012

Your feedback wanted on 40 zones in Gungahlin and Woden [With poll]

| johnboy
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Territory And Municipal Services are asking for your feedback on their trial of 40kmph zones in the Gungahlin and Woden town centres.

Evaluation of the trial will now be undertaken to determine the effectiveness of the 40km/h speed area in improving safety for vulnerable road users. As part of this process community feedback is invited from traders, shoppers and road users. Speed, traffic volumes and pedestrian surveys will also be conducted.

To provide your feedback please complete the online survey.

Hardcopies of the survey are available at the Woden and Gungahlin Libraries as well as the Woden Canberra Connect Shopfront.

Consultation closes at 5 pm on Wednesday 29 February 2012.

40 zones in Gungahlin and Woden town centres have...

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There’s also this vague fuzzy concept of “amenity”, basically the suggestion that if cars are generally travelling slower, pedestrians (that’s you and me) will feel more comfortable in that space.

But then this is Woden and Gungahlin we’re talking about. It’s not like the poor people there will be positively impacted by the amenity of the venue when they’re busy trying to figure out how they can afford to buy a home when it already costs so much to keep bailing the kids out of remand.

Thoroughly Smashed12:50 pm 17 Jan 12

SamTSeppo said :

There’s not enough context to evaluate the claims fully. How many pedestrians and bicyclists are struck and killed every year in the Gungahlin and Woden town centres? How many pedestrians and bicyclists are struck and severely injured every year in the Gungahlin and Woden town centres?

I couldn’t tell you, but surely they deserve some credit for being proactive about it if the occurrence is low?

legal_chick8612:45 pm 17 Jan 12

Bluey said :

They changes the speed limit in Gungahlin Town Centre?

I had no idea. You always have to crawl through there anyway due to 13* pedestrian crossings, people parallell parking and waiting to turn right holding up cars. They could reduce it to 20kph and it wouldnt make a difference.

Just for the love of God dont make it a ‘shared zone’

*may or may not have as many as 13 crossings.

HAHA!

There’s not enough context to evaluate the claims fully. How many pedestrians and bicyclists are struck and killed every year in the Gungahlin and Woden town centres? How many pedestrians and bicyclists are struck and severely injured every year in the Gungahlin and Woden town centres?

Mind you, overall I agree with a general drop in the speed limit in heavy pedestrian areas. 60 is ridiculous. In an area with on-street parking (that is, a protective wall of cars behind which pedestrians walk) 50 seems adequate, but otherwise 40 is probably correct.

It astounds me that the A.C.T Government is willing to publish images like this one:

http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0007/229174/safetyspeedlimits.png

in it’s official website postings.

The graph shows that a pedestrian hit by a motor vehicle at 60 km/h is 100% likely to be killed… this is consistent with other research I’ve read. It has also been the basis of some of my requests to the A.C.T Government to implement lower speed limits in high pedestrian activity areas. These requests have typically been rejected with “it’s a major collector road, we don’t want to put in a lower speed limit as it will result in motorists exceeding it when the area is quieter.”

Gah!

So in their attempt to explain why 40 km/h limits are necessary, the A.C.T Government has shown that a pedestrian hit by a car on London Circuit in the city, regardless of who was at fault, is 100% likely to be killed if that motorist was travelling at the legal maximum speed. This is apparently acceptable because it’s unreasonable to expect motorists to travel at 50 km/h for a few hundred meters on a Sunday morning, when 60 km/h might actually be safe.

Yet we have 80 km/h on the GDE… no proper explanation why, with massive enforcement, despite 90 to 100 km/h easily being safe early on a Sunday morning.

Other high pedestrian activity roads with a ridiculously high 60 km/h speed limit today:

Rudd / Bunda Street in the CBD, one way only. 50 km/h the other way.
London Circuit
Townshend Street Philip
Flinders Way, Manuka
Anketell Street Tuggers

The A.C.T continues to have amongst the highest speed limits in such busy pedestrian areas in the developed world (30 to 50 km/h are the norm), and amongst the lowest speed limits on limited access roads in the developed world.

The result, even if these 40 km/h limits are implemented permanently, most Canberrans are not going to take note of them, because they’re subconsciously used to the majority of speed limits in Canberra being a joke.

The url on that linked TAMS site is:

http://www.tams.act.gov.au/move/roads/road_safety/speedandspeeding/mystery_page

“Mystery_Page”

????????????????????????????????????????

???

They changes the speed limit in Gungahlin Town Centre?

I had no idea. You always have to crawl through there anyway due to 13* pedestrian crossings, people parallell parking and waiting to turn right holding up cars. They could reduce it to 20kph and it wouldnt make a difference.

Just for the love of God dont make it a ‘shared zone’

*may or may not have as many as 13 crossings.

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