City of Fremantle Hampton Road Speed Limit Reduction

Published on Thursday, 15 May 2025 at 12:08:00 PM

The City of Fremantle successfully applied for a speed limit reduction on Hampton Road and Ord Street in 2023.

The City of Fremantle requested Main Roads WA (MRWA) to undertake a speed limit review on Hampton Road, Fremantle. Undertaking in June 2022, the review was split into four sections:

  • Section 1 – James/Ord St from Beach Street to High Street – Local Distributor
  • Section 2 – Hampton Road from High Street to South Street – Local Distributor
  • Section 3 – Hampton Road from South Street to Douro Road – Distributor A
  • Section 4 – Hampton Road from Douro Road to Rockingham Road - Distributor A

The speed review followed the process outlined in the MRWA Speed Zoning Policy and Application Guidelines and identified appropriate target speeds for different categories of roads based on various factors, including Movement and Place, the current operating speed, as well as crash data from the previous five-year periods.

The following 85th percentiles speeds were recorded

  • Section 1: 52km/h
  • Section 2: 50-60km/h
  • Section 3: 59km/h
  • Section 4: 60km/h

Due to the high place value, it was proposed that sections 1 and 2 drop from 60km/h to 50km/h whilst sections 3 and 4 remain at 60km/h

This was supported by the following infrastructure changes:

  • Extended a bike lane (Wray Rd to South Street) in 2014-2015
  • Installed speed humps on Ord St between 2015-2017
  • Coloured the existing bike lanes red (and green) 2017-2018
  • Protected Bike lanes on Ord St in 2020 (High Street to Knutsford St)
  • Protected Bike lane Trial on Ord St in 2022 (Helen Street to Finnerty St) (now removed)

The speed limit change was approved and was effective from 27 February 2023

The Road Safety Toolkit[1] states that regulating traffic speed to levels commensurate with the road environment is crucial to the delivery of forgiving roads and has a potential casualty reduction of 25-40%

[1] https://toolkit.irap.org/safer-road-treatments/speed-management-and-traffic-calming/

Photo credit: City of Fremantle, Hampton Road 

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