A safe transport network reduces crash incidents and severity for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles. Additionally, increasing personal and perceived safety will support the increased uptake of active travel on our network. An active travel network that is connected, accessible, visible, and separated from vehicles creates accumulated benefits for road network congestion and safety.

Council supports the long-term vision of national and state road safety plans. A safe transport system needs input from everyone. We will apply a Safe Systems approach in our Transport Safety Plan to ensure all roads have safe speed limits, risk assessments and infrastructure upgrades where needed, and support a road safety culture in our communities.

We will also include Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) safety standards in our vehicle fleet procurement to increase the uptake of safer vehicles and reduce the risk severe crashes on our roads.

Our region’s continued growth will challenge the ability to reduce crashes or crash severity. Limiting car trips, applying transport safety engineering solutions and safe system principles on our roads will provide long term benefits such as reduced road fatalities, reduced carbon emissions, and improved community health.

Our region has some communities that need to travel by car for all trips, but also has some people without a car. Many senior and disabled people are reliant on the active and public transport networks for their mobility. The long-term ambition of this strategy is for all communities to have transport choices that are appropriate for the location.

Walking or cycling connectivity to destinations, and accessible bus stops have positive outcomes for people, the environment, society, and the economy. When people walk or cycle, they are more likely to linger, meet other people and spend money at local businesses.

Council’s ambition is for everyone to have convenient and accessible transport choices.

• Planning and delivering the Missing Links Pathways Program for our active transport network. This program provides a continuous pathway network between destinations.
• Our road safety plan continually assesses, plans and delivers infrastructure to reduce the risks of severe crashes.

• Deliver an active travel pathway network as a convenient travel choice for short trips.
• Improve connectivity, amenity, facilities and tree shade cover of the existing pathway network.
• Reduce car reliance by improving awareness of and access to alternative transport options.
• Reduce the risk of wildlife vehicle collisions by constructing fauna crossing infrastructure.
• Reduce the severity of road crashes on Council roads.
• Improve passive surveillance and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design measures on active and public transport networks.

• Deliver fit-for-purpose new pathways.
• Support the safe use of micro-mobility devices in our region.