Speed limit cut to 30km/h on almost every street in two suburbs

The maximum speed limit across two inner-Melbourne suburbs has been dropped to 30km/h after the state government approved a two-year council trial aimed at reducing serious crashes.

The new limit will apply to vehicles and trams on almost every street in Fitzroy and Collingwood, capping them at lower than the 40km/h school zones across the state.

New 30km/h speed limit signs have been put up across local streets in the City of Yarra.

The only thoroughfares not included are major state-managed roads – Johnston, Nicholson and Hoddle streets and Alexandra and Victoria parades.

But the City of Yarra is also campaigning for limits on its exempt roads– Nicholson, Alexandra Parade, Johnston, Victoria and Hoddle – to be reduced to either 40km/h or 60km/h.

Mayor Edward Crossland said the council hoped the measure would eventually become permanent and encompass more of the municipality and other council areas.

“The evidence is clear – lower speed limits save lives,” the Greens councillor said.

New 30km/h signs recently went up across the two suburbs and the change came into effect on Thursday.

The expanded trial – which covers a roughly 3 square kilometres bordered by Alexandra Parade and Nicholson, Hoddle and Victoria streets – comes after a 30km/h limit was introduced in a smaller part of the northern edge of both suburbs in 2018. That change was intended as a 12-month trial, but has remained.

The City of Yarra published a review of Victorian road crash data for the five years leading up to the implementation of its existing 30km/h trial and the five years since, which showed a 51 per cent reduction in all crashes and 70 per cent reduction in serious crashes.

The data showed there had been 193 crashes on the streets of Collingwood and Fitzroy in the past five years, often involving vulnerable road users including pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton previously dismissed the 30 km/h limit push as “ridiculous”.

Patton argued road fatalities were happening on rural roads, not inner-city streets, and said lowering the speed limit in the City of Yarra was not the answer.

City of Yarra resident and head of Streets Alive advocacy group Jeremy Lawrence.

“No one’s going to obey it … it’s ridiculous,” he said at the time.

On Thursday, Patton was quizzed again about his stance.

“I could have used better words,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“But it’s more in the context of, ‘Have we brought the community along? Have they outlined the case for it? Has there been the research that justifies the impost of what is a significant decrease?’Crossland was adamant police supported the change.

“We haven’t spoken directly to the commissioner, but we do know that Victoria Police is very supportive of this whole process. So we know that they are on page with what we’re doing,” he said.

Yarra resident and president of the Streets Alive Yarra advocacy group Jeremy Lawrence said the shift meant Yarra was now in line with European standards

He said the reduced speed limit was an efficient alternative to bike lanes.

“If you want a kid to be able to ride from any house in Yarra to their local school, then they’re going to have to ride a lot on local streets, and you can’t put a bike lane on every street – it’s just too expensive,” Lawrence said.

“[Speed limit reductions] is the lowest total cost for maximum possible safety access… [for] people of all ages and abilities; kids, seniors, parents with prams.“

But Liberal member for Northern Metropolitan Region Evan Mulholland, whose upper house seat takes in the City of Yarra, said the move was “slowing the rest of the state, slowing down people getting home on time, and its pitting Green ideology against everyday road users who need to get from A to B”.

But Yarra Residents Collective founder Adam Promnitz, founder of the Yarra Residents Collective locals group pointed to Monash University data showing compliance with the limit in the initial 2018 trial dropped from 95 per cent to 66 per cent after the 30km/h was introduced.

“You don’t want people picking and choosing which rules they will follow because you made the rules so ridiculous,” he said.

In Victoria, the default urban speed limit is 50km/h, and 30km/h zones can only be implemented in trials.

International research suggests if a pedestrian is hit by a car travelling at 30km/h, they have a 90 per cent chance of survival. This drops to just 10 per cent if a car is travelling at 50km/h.

Last week, a long-awaited final report of the inquiry into the impact of road safety behaviours on vulnerable road users was tabled in Victorian parliament, with the committee making 56 recommendations, including a priority push to review speed zoning guidelines.

The inquiry followed a horror period on the state’s roads with 296 killed — the greatest loss of life in 15 years – in 2023. That was 24 per cent higher than in 2022. Nationally, road deaths increased 6.8 per cent by the end of November, but only 3.6 per cent when excluding Victoria.

-with Patrick Hatch, Melissa Cunningham

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A previous version of this story stated the council wanted exempt roads to be reduced to 40 km per hour as stated in a press conference. The council has since clarified it wishes some exempt roads to be reduced to 40 km and others to 60 km.