Axe over school zones

SCHOOL zone speed limit hours could be slashed in half as Cairns Regional Council looks at ways to curb the city’s morning traffic.

The Department of Transport and Main Roads sets a blanket two-hour, twice-daily rule for 40km/h zones near schools around Queensland – but it is not set in stone.

Infrastructure services general manager Bruce Gardiner told yesterday’s council meeting there was potential to reduce the operating hours to an hour apiece during weekday mornings and afternoons.

“The standard TMR has set across the state is two hours at all schools,” he said.

“But … there is a number of councils, outside southeast Queensland mainly, that have applied for variations to that time zone.

“They range from an hour and a half to an hour.

“It is pretty much a risk assessment, if you like, of the individual schools, getting the individual schools’ comments on board and then making an application to TMR and they assess it.”

Mr Gardiner said there were 36 schools affected by the zoning across Cairns.

“In amongst those 36 there will be many, from our past experience that will be happy with one hour,” he said.

“There will be some that want something different.”

Yesterday’s meeting voted to investigate support for cutting back the hours – especially around the heavily congested northern approach to the CBD.

Division 8 Cr Jessie Richardson said she first raised the issue in 2015 after realising Townsville had already cut back to one hour outside many schools.

“I think the traffic moved a lot more smoothly past all the big schools – and they’ve got a lot of schools on main roads,” she said.

Cr Richardson said the Mother of Good Counsel on Sheridan St was a chief sticking point for traffic.

“If you could get it down to an hour there, you would relieve a lot of the pressure in the mornings,” she said.

Mayor Bob Manning said it would be up to schools whether or not they wanted to make the change.

“We’ve always been told that Townsville is a bigger city than Cairns,” he said.

“If it’s a bigger city than Cairns, they’re down to one hour, we’re two hours – it seems to be out of balance.”