Council rejects blanket 30km/h speed limits

Adelaide City Council publicly condemned a proposal to reduce speed limits to 30km/h citywide at their first meeting in 2025.

Jan 29, 2025, updated Jan 29, 2025
Adelaide City Council emphasised their position to reject a blanket speed limit ban of 30km/h citywide, after it was floated at a workshop last year. This picture: Claudia Dichiera/InDaily
Adelaide City Council emphasised their position to reject a blanket speed limit ban of 30km/h citywide, after it was floated at a workshop last year. This picture: Claudia Dichiera/InDaily

The council voted to abandon further investigation into a “blanket” 30km/h or 40km/h speed limit at last night’s meeting.

Councillor Henry Davis brought the matter to the meeting after the council received public backlash when considering a proposal to slash speed limits at the end of 2024.

“The people of Adelaide are very smart people, and they know this ridiculous proposal would only hurt our city, and we need to listen to them,” Davis said.

The council’s Infrastructure and Public Works Committee heard in November that applying a maximum speed limit of 30km/h across the city would “significantly enhance safety”.

Currently, three roads in the City of Adelaide are 30km/h: Plane Tree Drive, Hindley Street and a small section of Grote Street in the middle of Victoria Square.

Council plans to upgrade city mainstreets, like Hutt Street, have included suggestions to limit speeds to 30km/h. This picture: a before and after shot of the council’s plans for Hutt Street, via City of Adelaide.

Davis said changing speed limits to 30km/h across the city “would destroy the very heart of Adelaide”.

“This disastrous idea will cripple small business,” he said.

“Customers won’t waste their time coming to the city only to be stuck in crawling traffic.

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“Slower speeds means chaos. It means gridlocked streets, frustrated drivers and deserted shops.

“Now we all want safer streets, but the proposal of a 30-kilometre blanket is not the answer, and we were not presented with the data for this proposal, and we were not presented with the facts that indicated that a 30-kilometre zone would actually improve safety.”

According to data presented to council in November, in the past five years, the City of Adelaide has recorded 2400 crashes; four were fatal, 211 resulted in serious injury and 658 resulted in minor injury.

This means someone is injured nearly every second day in the City of Adelaide.

Deputy Lord Mayor David Elliott said it’s “important to remember” there was a 15 per cent decrease in fatalities after the default urban speed limit was lowered from 60km/h to 50km/h on unsigned roads in 2003.

“Speed limits and car parking are completely separate to the success of a business,” Elliott said.

As well as taking a hard stance against blanket slower speeds, the council will continue their ongoing work investigating speed limits to make city roads safer with an emphasis on making sure any changes to speed limits are “grounded in actual crash data and evidence-based analysis”.

The council has been investigating safer urban speed limits since 2022 and commissioned consulting company Stantec to review the need for reducing speeds.

The speed limit review is something the council will consider as part of their policy work to create an Integrated Transport Strategy and review school safety zones.

Businesses and residents will be consulted before the council decides to change speed limits or take road safety measures.

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