Amid the uproar of the speed limit of a section of Northbourne Avenue being lowered to 40km/h, planning professional DAVID JONES* argues it’s still too high.

I MADE a mistake and read the internet comments in relation to the recent 40km/h speed limit implementation on Northbourne Avenue. 

They were the usual populist rhetoric; “revenue raising”, “show me the evidence”, “pedestrians should look both ways”. 

I assume many of these commenters don’t want to see the evidence, because two minutes of Googling for peer-reviewed evidence will reveal a lot. But I hope this piece may provide some insight regardless.

In the early ’80s, peer-reviewed evidence began clearly demonstrating the danger that cars imposed on pedestrians, based on the speed the cars were moving. 

Research showed that if a motorist hits a pedestrian at speeds up to 30km/h, the pedestrian has a 90 per cent chance of survival. At higher speeds, survivability rates decrease sharply. Multiple studies have demonstrated that when a motorist hits a pedestrian at 60 km/h, the pedestrian has almost no chance of survival.

In response to this, around 40 years ago, some European countries began rolling out 30km/h speed limits on residential local access streets. The intention was to make residential areas safer for the people who live there, safer for children to walk to school, safer for people to socialise with neighbours, walk and ride bicycles. 

Australia did not do this. 20-30 years ago, we began lowering local speed limits to 50 km/h only. Hit at 50km/h, a pedestrian has around an 85 per cent chance of death. Canberra only lowered limits to 50km/h on local access streets, with residential minor collector roads still allowing speeds up to 60km/h. 

In 2020, the UN mandated that 30km/h limits should be the default for areas where pedestrians are likely to be present.

Many decades after the first speed/risk curves were released demonstrating that a pedestrian hit by a car at 60km/h was probably going to die, Canberra finally decided that a section of Northbourne Avenue, which sees amongst the most pedestrian traffic on it in the city, both day and night, probably shouldn’t allow speeds of 60km/h. 

However, for some reason Australian bureaucrats, including those in the ACT government, believe that they know better than the leading world health experts, and decided a 40km/h limit is appropriate for areas of high-pedestrian activity in Australia, rather than the UN-mandated 30km/h.

Perhaps Australian bodies are better built to withstand being pummelled by an SUV than our European counterparts?

Despite decades of evidence and despite the recent UN mandate, Canberra’s default urban speed limits remain 50km/h, with 60km/h still posted on many residential roads. 

Forty years after peer-reviewed research began to consistently demonstrate that 50 and 60km/h speed limits are too dangerous for residential streets, or anywhere pedestrians are likely to be present, Canberra’s Estate Development Code still mandates that new streets must be constructed to design speeds of 50 and 60 km/h.

Why? What possible reason does the ACT government have compared to 40 years of evidence and the recommendations of world-renowned health experts?

It deserves mentioning that to achieve lower speeds and safer streets that Canberra so desperately needs, we cannot simply slap lower speed-limit signs up on roads that may have been designed for much higher speeds. In some cases, a “road diet” (lane reduction) and traffic calming will be necessary.

The new 40km/h limit on Northbourne Avenue had many speed-limit signs for each direction of traffic, “40” painted on the road, electronic variable message signs warning of the change, and speed-camera warning signs present. Nearly a dozen warnings over a 500-metre distance. 

Those caught speeding in the new 40km/h zone on Northbourne have absolutely no excuse for doing so and deserve every fine they’ve been issued. If that many motorists can be so oblivious to have missed that many speed-limit signs and that many warnings over only 500 metres, then perhaps it’s time the ACT government made licencing requirements more stringent.

However, the ACT government needs to acknowledge two things. First, that, as it has been implemented, the new Northbourne Avenue 40km/h speed limit has failed to slow Canberra’s less-observant motorists down. Physical changes to the road environment are needed to force them to slow down. This will likely be less popular than lowering the speed limit was, but it needs to be done. 

Secondly, 40km/h is still too fast for Northbourne Avenue between London Circuit and Barry Drive. An overwhelming body of peer-reviewed evidence exists that demonstrates that 40, 50 or 60km/h speed limits are not safe where pedestrians are likely to be present. 

The ACT government could be opening itself up to a world of compensation claims by continuing to permit these speeds throughout Canberra’s high-pedestrian activity and residential areas. There is also no excuse for ACT’s Estate Development Code to continue mandating local access streets to continue to be built to such design speeds.

Speed limits for Canberra’s local access streets and high-pedestrian activity areas, including parts of Northbourne Avenue, should not exceed 30km/h.

*EDITOR’S NOTE: David Jones is a pseudonym. “CityNews” would not ordinarily publish unsigned work, but I felt the issues he raises in regard to road safety were an interesting addition to the public debate.