On Monday 14th, local residents Rob vincent, Chris Harries and myself attended a special meeting of the City Services Committee at the Town Hall. We each spoke for a few minutes to the alderman regarding our request for traffic calming in Waterworks Rd. Two residents from Ridgeway community and one Waterworks resident spoke against the proposal.
After some debate by the aldermen, the end result is:
- speed humps will be temporarily installed along the section of Waterworks Road from the reserve to Romilly Street for a six month trial period
- council will do a speed survey of the street prior to installation and at some stage afterwards to measure the effectiveness of the speed humps
- no plans were made to extend the installation of speed humps below Romilly street at this meeting, although these are still on the drawing board.
Only one alderman voted against the amended proposal.
It seemed the aldermen were persuaded by the large response to their surveys and most importantly because there was such strong community support for traffic calming.
I think I can speak for us all in sincerely hoping that those who opposed the speed humps will find them less inconvenient and problematic then they have envisaged.
One benefit of this debate, incidentally, has been the opportunity given us to highlight to Hobart Council that there are much more comprehensive ways to calm traffic. Speed humps are a fairly crude way of doing it – well designed streetscapes, making use of trees and other architectural devices can turn a dragstrip into a pleasant thoroughfare where motorists simply do not want to speed. There are many examples in European cities where these methods are in use.
Thank you and well done to everyone for being proactive on an issue we all felt was important. It’s time to put energy into working on more sustainable living / community-building projects????
Janine Brookes
3 comments ↓
Interesting that even the opponents agreed to traffic calming. Their main objection was speed humps.
Also the other aspects that arose were footpths not being continuous in the street this is a crucial issue for pedestrians and children cycling in safety along the road.
There is potential for some traffic bulbs with appropriate landscaping. I think this could be a great contibutor to the whole feeling in the street particular if we could get ‘productive’ rather than ‘decorative’ tree planting.
I am so relieved that they are putting in the speed humps. Well done Janine, Chris and Rob!
It would be great to have more attractive traffic calming devices further down the track, but the key objective of slowing down traffic NOW so we avoid a loss of life has been achieved. Brilliant community work. I love living on this street…
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