To: Canada Bay Council

Residents for Safe Streets to School: Canada Bay

Please separate our kids from fast-moving traffic so they can walk or ride to school safely. We are asking within 2km of every school in the LGA for:
-Pedestrian priority crossings and footpaths on streets with speed limits 40km/h and higher
Or
-30km/h speed limits for streets where there are no pedestrian priority crossings or footpaths

Why is this important?

Children deserve to walk or ride to school safely.

Walking to school improves kids' fitness and independence. However, they are often driven over short distances to school by parents. Parents perceive that their child's journey to school is unsafe on part of or on their whole journey.

As a result, our streets are subject to tens of thousands more car trips every year, making them even less safe and clogging up roads with unnecessary traffic during morning drop off and afternoon pick up.

Streets without footpaths and crossings with speed limits higher than 30km/h are not considered safe by Australia's safe system approach.

The Case for crossings:
Research shows that children cannot judge gaps in traffic consistently when cars go faster than 30km/h to safely cross a street
On streets where there are no footpaths and crossings, reducing the car speed to 30km/h would prevent most accidents: the stopping distance for a car traveling 30km/h is 13m. Stopping distance for a car traveling 50km/h is 37m. The risk of death or serious injury if hit at 30km/h is less than 10%; compared to 90% if hit at 50km/h. It is an unreasonable risk to place our children in harms way on their journey to school.

How it will be delivered

Through the TfNSW Covid recovery programmes, the council now has more powers to make walking and cycling safe: https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/projects/01documents/popup-covid-19-infrastructure/nsw-street-treatments-for-covid-recovery.pdf
We do not believe it is fair to wait for an accident to happen and our kids to get injured or killed. Please make our streets to school safe now.

Links

Campaign Facebook Page Campaign Website Safe Streets to School

Updates

2021-10-01 16:08:43 +1000

We are getting ready to return to school and how good would it be if more kids have the option to walk or ride to school safely. After experiencing less traffic in the lockdown so many more kids were riding and exploring their neighbourhoods.

When traffic picks up again, it will be harder to cross streets again. Did you know we now have 4 times the amount of cars in Australia than in 1970?

Our Wollongong chapter will run a learnshop about 30km/h on Monday. They will also talk about a school pilot they are supporting, media strategy and much more:

Link to school pilot: https://healthycities.org.au/programs/safe-and-active-routes-to-school-saarts/

It is free to join, rsvp here:
https://me.getup.org.au/events/30km-h-learnshop

Also if you are interested to get involved a bit more and have an informal chat just email and we can set something up.

2021-10-01 15:32:11 +1000

Safe Streets Canada Bay has had promising discussions with local councillors, who express support for safer streets. We have made a submission this week to the Traffic Committee’s proposal for more safe crossings around schools. We’re seeking upgrades of a few of these to be raised crossings, not just pedestrian refuges.

2021-09-01 09:25:19 +1000

I’ve never seen so many families out and about, walking and cycling, in Canada Bay!! This lockdown is not what we want but fewer cars and beautiful Spring weather is some compensation. But will we lose this new local freedom towards the end of the year? I’m asking Canada Bay Councillors to slow traffic on our streets. There are local government elections coming up, 4 December, we need to tell our elected representatives what’s important to us in Canada Bay!!

2021-08-26 09:54:19 +1000

Which schools in Canada Bay need attention in Canada Bay? Help me build up a list of priorities for crossings and/or 30kmh speed limit. Please add what you know! I'm seeing: Five Dock PS. St Patricks Mortlake. North Strathfield PS. St Marys Concord. Concord High School. Concord PS. What else do YOU see?

2021-08-26 08:55:35 +1000

A management plan for Five Dock Park is being prepared by Canada Bay Council. Our submission calls for 30 km/h speed limits on the surrounding streets and a re-design of these streets to slow traffic to allow people to cross safely and easily to the Park and to Domremy College on First Ave.

2021-08-12 13:36:14 +1000

Wonderful to see families out and about on our local streets, walking and riding. Lots fewer cars too! But still some crazy drivers. I saw one yesterday in Concord West accelerating up Queen St not far from the Primary School!! Let’s re-design our streets to discourage, even prevent, this sort of behaviour!

2021-07-24 13:32:49 +1000

50 signatures reached

2021-07-21 10:16:59 +1000

25 signatures reached

2021-07-20 16:39:02 +1000

10 signatures reached