Improving the health of this busy road corridor
Sitting approximately 12.4 miles south-east of the Perth central business district, the Albany Highway through Gosnells Town Centre is an important vehicular link, carrying high volumes of traffic around Perth each day. However, in keeping with the city’s aspirations to foster a people-focused environment, Main Roads Western Australia wanted to improve the corridor’s safety. That’s where we came in.
Our work included a movement and place assessment to evaluate the corridor’s function and the town center’s current “place score,” which evaluates how a public space performs as a place that people and communities want to spend time in. This then allowed us to make recommendations that balanced improving the corridor’s place score with maintaining the core function of the highway.
After that, we completed a Healthy Streets assessment to demonstrate how the movement and place recommendations would improve the “healthiness” of the corridor and town center. Healthy Streets is an approach that looks at streets through a human experience and health lens, assessing streets through 10 Healthy Streets Indicators.
The results? We recommended a reduced variable speed limit along the corridor. With our evaluations in hand, Main Roads WA has now implemented a variable speed limit during the day—meaning the speed limit will reduce from 37 miles per hour to 31 miles per hour at times when people are likely to be visiting the town center.
At a Glance
- Offices
- Client
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- Main Roads Western Australia
- Partners
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- City of Gosnells
Alix Oakes, Principal Transportation Planner, Practice Leader - Complete Streets
I advocate planning for people-first streets—to positively affect climate sustainability and equitable access for future generations.
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