Knox has received funding from Vicroads to commence a Road Safety Strategy for local thoroughfares.
Manager Engineering Services Bruce Conboy said this project will differ from previous approaches to road safety in a fundamental way. “We want to get away from looking at road safety purely as an engineering issue,” he said.
“There is only so much that can be achieved from installing roundabouts, speed humps and other initiatives to slow traffic. “We want to study people’s behaviour and see what affects the way they behave and see if we can make a difference there.”
Bruce said it has always been part of the Knox Corporate Plan to include a Road Safety Strategy. However, this project would not have gone ahead so early without this funding.
The Strategy will be formed with considerable input from community consultation. It will include liaising with the City’s network of Community Centres, Maternal and Child Health Centres, preschools and schools.
“It is fortunate that Council is already tapped into a wide network of organisations and groups that can assist with the Strategy,” he said. “The aim is to have all these networks interact to come up with a Strategy which better serves everyone’s needs.”
Consultants will be employed to assist with the process. He added that the Strategy will also tie in with a review of cycle paths in the City being undertaken.
Council is looking at extending these and creating better links so the paths can operate more effectively providing greater safety for users. “For school children, cyclepaths have the potential to provide safer routes to school than the road network,” he said.
