Safe and Liveable Urban Communities Initiative
The global trend towards more on-demand services and a delivery cultures is making urban environments busier. The challenge is to keep our urban places liveable and design roads to be shared and safe for everyone.
The Safe and Liveable Communities initiative aims to improve the safety of people in urban areas, through infrastructure safety upgrades for pedestrians and bicycle riders, and by specifically addressing serious injury crashes in urban areas.
The Safe and Liveable Urban Communities initiative is targeting pedestrian and bicycle rider fatalities by using a number of key treatments:
- Expanding 40 km/h zones in areas of high pedestrian activity
- Installing traffic calming, pedestrian refuges and crossings in busy urban places to improve pedestrian safety
- Work that delivers safer and more controlled vehicle turning to reduce the risk of dangerous side impact crashes
- An expanded pedestrian protection (‘green on green’ removal) program and signal changes for safer pedestrian movement
- Raised intersection platforms, profile treatments, and innovative roundabout designs at more urban intersections to reduce serious injuries.
In line with Towards Zero, the Safe and Liveable Urban Communities initiative is delivering consistent improvements in place of traditional reactive safety treatments that target isolated locations on the road network.
Key Treatments
The Safe and Liveable Urban Communities initiative is targeting pedestrian and bicycle rider fatalities by using a number of key treatments
40 km/h zones in areas of high pedestrian activity
Raised pedestrian (wombat) crossings
Pedestrian refuges
Roundabouts
Pedestrian protection at signalised intersections
Key Treatments
40 km/h zones in areas of high pedestrian activity
Speed is a critical factor for the safety of pedestrians. A vehicle that hits a pedestrian at 50km/h is twice as likely to cause a fatality as the same vehicle travelling at 40km/h. In 2018, 67 pedestrians were killed on NSW roads, up 13 from the year before. Pedestrians, especially the elderly, are among our most vulnerable road users.
High Pedestrian Activity Areas with a 40km/h speed limit in NSW have been proven to reduce crashes causing serious injuries and deaths by 33 per cent. They are installed in busy pedestrian precincts such as around transport interchanges, shopping centres and in CBDs. These areas use a range of traffic calming measures from painted threshold gateway treatments through to raised thresholds and kerb extensions to ensure motorists are travelling at speeds safe for vulnerable road users.
Key Treatments
Raised pedestrian (wombat) crossings
Raised pedestrian (wombat) crossings are raised off the ground to elevate the pedestrian to make them more visible to motorists in the road environment and also calm traffic by reducing speeds.
This treatment can be combined with kerb extensions which narrow the distance a person has to cross. Raised pedestrian crossings can reduce pedestrian crashes by up to 50 per cent.
Key Treatments
Pedestrian refuges
More pedestrian refuge islands are being installed on busy or wide roads in built-up areas in NSW.
Refuges improve safety for pedestrians by allowing them to cross the road in two stages and reducing the crossing distance of each stage.
Kerbs that redirect traffic away from pedestrian refuges also provide some additional protection.
Pedestrian refuges can reduce pedestrian crashes by up to 20 per cent.
Key Treatments
Roundabouts
Roundabouts can reduce intersection crashes by up to 85 per cent. They are the primary safe system intersection treatment as they reduce motorist’s speed, conflict points and impact angles – lowering the risk of serious injury and providing a safer outcome than traditional intersections.
Generally, roundabouts have a better crash record than signalised intersections with similar volumes.
Other benefits of roundabouts include simple and consistent priority on all approaches, improved visibility of the intersection, and slower speeds which provide drivers with more time to react to unexpected hazards.
Key Treatments
Pedestrian protection at signalised intersections
Pedestrian protection is provided at signalised intersections where conflicting pedestrian and vehicle phases both get the green light. The traffic signals are reprogrammed to give pedestrians a lead time to begin crossing before a vehicle gets a green light to proceed. More than 500 intersections are being upgraded to include this protection across NSW and all new traffic signals must have this feature installed by default to protect vulnerable pedestrians at signalised intersections. The installation of pedestrian protection phases can reduce pedestrian crashes by 30 per cent.
