Perth Voice Interactive

Brakes on for pedestrian safety

I HAVE been frustrated by the lack of action on pedestrian safety at traffic lights.  

I work in a cafe on the corner of Fitzgerald and Newcastle streets. The traffic volume at this intersection is very high. 

It has no dedicated pedestrian lights and hence pedestrians are very hesitant to cross for fear of being run over. 

Those who try are often abused by drivers.

The intersection’s signage is virtually invisible, the crossing is angled in such a way that pedestrians are hard to see and the intersection’s closeness to the road has made this an accident just waiting to happen. 

There is an easy fix – a dedicated pedestrian crossing in the light cycle or at least a pedestrian light to remind drivers that they must give way to pedestrians.

Benedict Hodsdon
West Perth

The Ed says: Another easy fix would be an education campaign reminding WA drivers they must give way to pedestrians when turning right at an intersection, as this is one of the most routinely ignored laws in the state. Follow it up with some fines and they’ll get the idea.

Tracking the wheel spin

THE latest edition of the Voice had an article with former mayors John Carey and Emma Cole celebrating the adoption of a 40kph speed limit on residential streets (“Vincent goes 40,” Voice, October 21, 2023).  

But to understand exactly why they were celebrating one needs to have a better understanding of the history of the change.

Vincent commenced a trial of the lower speed limit in 2019.  

Strangely they chose the southern part of Vincent for the trial even though those streets are generally narrower, and speeds are generally lower than in the north.  

After the initial trial, the analysis of the data collected showed that speeds had only dropped by about 1kph.  

Nowhere in the report did the consultants say that this change was ‘statistically significant’ – it may have been due to other factors such as wet weather, thus lower speeds, when the second lot of measurements were taken.  

One thing that was not clearly evident was that the police were not enforcing the change – it was a bit like an honour system.  

Yet another finding was that people felt safer walking and riding on the streets. This was despite the fact that there had been a negligible change in speed – it was all about perceptions.

After a bit of prompting a final report was presented to council earlier this year. The City employed yet another consultant to review the findings and make recommendations based on best practice around the world. 

The consultant’s report was of a high quality and had a recommendation, that to make a real difference, we need to go to 30kph on local roads – not the main distributors, they would stay at the current speed, just the potentially quiet residential streets.  

This is the system that operates in most of Europe and has been progressively adopted in London to make streets safer.

Disappointingly the administration didn’t even address this recommendation, raising the question “why did they spend over $10,000 on getting the report when they just ignored it?”. 

Naturally, the council also took the easy way out and just went with what is essentially the status quo.

I have no doubt that the change to 30kph would be a hard sell and would require significant work and intellectual capacity.

Which brings me to the initial point – what were those former mayor’s celebrating. 

I think that the opportunity for self-promotion is only a small part. I think it has more to do with creating the perception that they had made significant change when in fact there was little – they were people of action, when they weren’t.  

Sadly, this is the norm from our political class, very few of whom have any class.  

It’s all about perceptions and warm fuzzy feelings rather than putting in the effort to make a real change.

Dudley Maier
Highgate

Humans of the overflow

WHY are they so concerned about ageing Australians and how to pay for and accommodate them in the future decades?

That’s the very least of our problems.

Planet Earth physically can not keep up with feeding and watering all of the over-populated mouths we now have abroad, let alone continued human over-population growth from these places.

They then expect to burden the rest of the world with their excessive numbers of overflow.

Brad Capes
Coolbellup

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