Background

In response to community concern regarding pedestrian and vehicle conflict along Arden Street, Council engaged consultants to undertake a safety review of Arden Street, between Macpherson Street and the LGA boundary at Varna Street.

The review was guided by Council's People Movement and Places Transport Strategy , in particular the signature project of Schools Active Travel and its objective to improve access to schools by making it easy to walk, ride and catch public transport.

Safety Issues Identified

The safety review identified the highest priority safety issue to be conflict with motor vehicles at the signalised pedestrian crossing outside Clovelly Public School where too many motorists were observed 'running the red'. The major contributor to this issue was considered to be poor visibility of the red lanterns, exacerbated when school buses were lined up illegally outside the school.

Other key issues identified included;

• pedestrian / vehicle conflict at the Chesterfield Parade pedestrian crossing
• vehicular speed
• inadequate footpath widths
• need for safe cycling to and from school by students and their parents

Proposed Treatments

The following treatments are proposed to address the issues identified in the review. Please see the concept design in the document library for more detail.

Signalised pedestrian crossing

• Kerb buildouts at the signalised pedestrian crossing
• Relocation of lantern posts onto the kerb buildouts and/or overhead masts
• Formalisation of a new school bus zone and existing STA bus zone to current standards
• Extension of west-side Arden St kerb between the signalised crossing and Varna Street

Chesterfield Parade pedestrian crossing

• Upgrade the crossing to a wombat crossing and relocate it as far as practical from the intersection without impacting the nearby trees.

Vehicular speed

• Narrow the travel lane where practical
• Upgrade the crash barriers (and make more pedestrian friendly)
• Renew the paint and reflective markers

Encourage safe walking and cycling to school

• Significantly widen the footpath between Chesterfield Parade and Baglin Street
• Extend the footpath outside Clovelly Public School to the kerb to create a safer space for existing walking and cycling (child and accompanying adult only) to and from school
• Widen the Arden Street west side footpath to 2.5 metres to create a shared path for pedestrian and cycling to and from school.
• Upgrade the footpath on Arden Street east side footpath to create a shared path for pedestrian and cycling to and from school.

Please note that the degraded surface section of Arden Street road is scheduled for resurfacing in early 2019-20 financial year.

Funding

Given the scale of the project, Council will adopt a phased approach to implementing the treatments. Council has allocated funding in the 2019-20 budget to address the highest priority issues arising from the Safety Review.