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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3016 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

The committee has had the opportunity of viewing the use of traffic calming measures, including 50-kilometre an hour zones in the Brisbane city council area, at Hurstville in particular in Sydney and in a number of suburban areas, particularly the Waverley area, in Melbourne.

This is a controversial issue. The committee recognises the strong community support both for and against the introduction of such a speed limit. The views that were expressed tended to be on the single factor of lower speed limits. However, this matter must be considered in the broader context of traffic calming measures, and this is the context in which the committee has made its recommendations.

While the committee commends the proposed national review of the issue, it is aware that the ACT need not mindlessly follow any recommendation. The ACT is in a unique position. Canberra is a city that was designed for the motor vehicle and, as such, it has a carefully planned hierarchy of road systems. It is for this reason that we should carefully consider the benefits by having the suggested trial.

The trial should be for a period of sufficient length to give a true indication of the effects of the lower speed limit. The committee noted from its Queensland visit that 18 months was not quite long enough. Queanbeyan conducted a trial over a period of two years before confirming the introduction of the new limit. It is for these reasons that we recommend that the period of a trial should be two years. The committee considered that the trial should apply only to local and feeder streets and not to sub-arterial, arterial and parkway roads. The committee wants to make it perfectly clear that not every road in the ACT will have a 50-kilometre per hour speed limit.

The committee further understands that, due to community support both for and against, contentious streets will have to be considered on their individual merits. For this reason the committee recommends that those contentious streets be considered by the committee with input from local elected members of this parliament, as is the case in other jurisdictions.

Further, the committee recommends that extensive public awareness measures be undertaken both before and during the trial. The committee recommends such measures as a letterbox drop of brochures to all ACT households and the printing of information on the back of registration labels.

The committee noted that a number of accidents that took place on local and feeder streets involved children, elderly persons and cyclists and considered that a trial of 50 kilometres an hour for local and feeder streets would be meritorious if it reduced the number of accidents. We believe that a trial should go ahead and that it should be rigorously assessed. Only after all of this has taken place should it be adopted permanently.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those people who gave evidence by way of written submission or appeared at our public hearings. I also thank my fellow committee members Mr Corbell and Mr Rugendyke, the officers from the department who assisted the committee in its deliberations and people from the various jurisdictions whom we visited during our inquiries.

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