Why It’s Time for 30 Now!

Jullietta Jung and Jennifer Kent are launching a new campaign in Australia that is equally relevant around the world.

30Now will be calling for the speed limit on all local streets to be lowered to 30 kilometres per hour (20 miles per hour).

Jennifer Kent is Associate Professor, Urbanism at the University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. She’s also Honorary Associate Professor, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS).

Her research interests are at the intersections between urban planning, transport and human health.

Jullietta Jung has been President of the Australia-wide grass roots group Better Streets since November 2025.

Prior to that she was a Program Manager at the Global Designing Streets Initiative and has worked in various active transport roles in the New South Wales state government.

Jullietta founded Sydney Night Rides in 2015 as a safe way for people, particularly women to ride together at night.

During our conversation, Jennifer mentions the Global Road Safety Partnership. You can find out more about it here.

You can find out more about Better Streets, the organisation that Jullietta leads, here.

At the time of producing this podcast, the 30Now website was not yet live, but there is a Position Paper about the topic here.

During our conversation we refer to an episode that we previously recorded with Lee Waters, who was the driving force behind the country of Wales adopting 20 mile per hour speed limits nationwide. You can listen to that podcast here.

There have been several reports that document the reduction in road deaths and serious injuries in Wales since the speed limit was reduced.

This report is from the Welsh Government, who also produced this slightly more summarised report.

This report by the BBC says there have been 900 fewer injuries and few Councils have applied for higher speed limits but that the change is still not universally popular.

Meanwhile, Jullietta talked about the Safe Active Streets program in Perth, Western Australia.

Jullietta also talked about evidence that many in the community want slower speed limits. In particular home owners have put stickers on their rubbish bins to ask motorists to slow down.

 

What’s Up?

In our “What’s Up” section at the end of each podcast we share what we’ve been doing or about to do.

This episode was recorded with guest co-host Sara Stace. Sara is Director of Cities at Vivendi Consulting

Sara is part of a team embarking on a three year project to look at how cycling infrastructure can be delivered more effectively. They’re running a one hour online workshop with the Liveable Cities Collective on 30th April 2026. You can find out more about the Liveable Cities Collective here or register for the “Let’s Accelerate Cycleway Delivery!” workshop via Humanitix here.

Phil talked about his recent visit to Taipei, Taiwan including both good and bad aspects of their transport system in this incredibly densely populated city of about seven million people across its greater urban area.

Here as some of his photos from his visit in late March 2026:

This is a “suburban” area of Taipei, not the city centre.

Taipei’s U-Bike system is very heavily used day and night. The orange bike in the foreground is their new e-bike version which can be rented at slightly higher cost than the super-cheap to rent yellow analogue bikes.

This is a roadside Gogoro battery swapping station for motor scooter riders. There are over 12,500 of these stations across Taiwan.

This is one of two adjacent expo buildings that host the annual Taipei Cycle show. The driverless above ground metro line in the foreground is actually one of the oldest lines in Taipei. This venue is also served by a second, larger, faster metro line with a station underground.

It’s common to see one, two or three young children being transported on motor scooters in Taipei. These scooters outnumber cars. The white scooter in the background is an electric Gogoro model, but most scooters are still noisy petrol models like the one in foreground.

Parking fines are cheap in Taipei, so people with money often park in intersections or other illegal places, like this unattended Porsche.

As always, we’d love to hear from you with guest suggestions or any other feedback. Please use the Contact Us page on this website.

Until next month, keep squeaking!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.