{"id":17559,"date":"2010-03-09T07:36:06","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T23:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/c-marc-challenges-the-state-of-australian-cities-2010\/"},"modified":"2010-03-09T07:36:06","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T23:36:06","slug":"c-marc-challenges-the-state-of-australian-cities-2010","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/c-marc-challenges-the-state-of-australian-cities-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"C-MARC challenges the State of Australian Cities 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

C048\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Curtin-Monash Accident Research Centre (C-MARC) has criticised the Commonwealth\u2019s new State of Australian Cities 2010 report, released last Friday, saying it has ignored the key issue of road safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report neglects transport safety almost entirely and contains no safety assessment,\u201d said C-MARC Director, Associate Professor Brett Hughes.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoad safety is a significant issue which everyone should take seriously with 1,400 Australians killed in road crashes each year at a cost of $30 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are horrifying statistics and all levels of government must take responsibility for reducing crashes in cities, starting with the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commonwealth Bureau of Infrastructure Transport and Regional Economics reported that in 2006 there were 471 lives lost and 126,000 injuries in Australian cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were also more than 387,000 reported crashes, but this number is actually much higher since a large number of crashes are not reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report fails to answer the central question it poses of where are our cities now, and how are they progressing with respect to road safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Hughes acknowledged the Commonwealth\u2019s leadership in addressing city sustainability in the report, but was critical of the way it neglected road safety issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOmitting an assessment of road safety and not recognising its significance to the community is simply unacceptable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe modern Safe Systems approach to road safety must be incorporated in all stages of city planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Safe Systems approach recognises that many elements affect road safety, including the arrangements of cities, the design of suburbs, the type of transport system and the way individuals use transport.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoad safety must be integral to city planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Hughes said there was a need to plan to reduce crashes by better road safety, more public transport, more freight on rail and reducing travel demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic transport use grew by 23 per cent in Australian cities between 2004-2008 while passenger car use only increased by 1 per cent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese growth rates must be encouraged and planned for in our cities as they lead to reduced road crashes.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoad safety is everyone\u2019s responsibility and all levels of government, private companies and the general public need to work together to improve the safety of our communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commonwealth must explicitly include road safety when considering the condition and future of Australian cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

More information on C-MARC is available on the website http:\/\/www.c-marc.curtin.edu.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Curtin-Monash Accident Research Centre (C-MARC) has criticised the Commonwealth\u2019s new State of Australian Cities 2010 report, released last Friday, saying it has ignored the key issue of road safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-17559","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17559"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=17559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}