Baillie Street and Horsham West Pedestrian Safety Improvements

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Proposed Raised Pedestrian Crossings – We Want Your Feedback

Horsham Rural City Council is seeking community feedback on a series of proposed raised pedestrian crossings across central Horsham. The project aims to improve safety, accessibility and connectivity for pedestrians while supporting safer travel throughout the community.

The proposed crossings are located at:

  • Baillie Street and Hillary Street
  • Baillie Street near Horsham College and Federation University
  • Baillie Street near Wimmera Base Hospital
  • Hillary Street and Kirwood Street
  • Mathoura Street and Kooyong Street

These locations have been identified due to high levels of pedestrian activity, regular vehicle movements and their importance in connecting schools, healthcare facilities, residential areas and other community destinations.

The proposed raised pedestrian crossings are intended to:

  • Improve pedestrian safety by reducing vehicle speeds.
  • Increase driver awareness at key crossing locations.
  • Provide safer access for students, parents, carers, hospital patients, staff and visitors.
  • Improve accessibility and encourage walking throughout the precinct.

The proposal near Wimmera Base Hospital also includes formalising a 40 km/h speed zone, replacing the existing advisory speed environment to further improve pedestrian safety.

The project will also include associated pavement works, drainage modifications, signage and line marking improvements where required.

Why the treatment is needed

Baillie Street is an important movement corridor linking schools, the Wimmera Base Hospital and surrounding residential areas. These land uses generate regular pedestrian trips by students, families, hospital visitors, staff, older people and other vulnerable road users. A review of recorded crashes from 2012 to 2023 identified a persistent pattern of injury crashes around the locations where people most commonly need to cross.

Within the Baillie Street school zone, nine injury crashes were recorded between 2012 and 2023: three serious-injury crashes and six other-injury crashes. The pattern is dominated by turning conflicts at T-intersections, together with some mid-block incidents. This indicates that risk is not confined to a single point; it follows the routes used by students and families moving between the school and nearby streets and land uses.

The concentration is higher along the Wimmera Base Hospital frontage. Fifteen injury crashes were recorded between 2013 and 2023, including six serious-injury and nine other-injury crashes. Nearly all were vehicle-to-vehicle crashes at cross-intersections. The combination of higher traffic volumes, turning movements into hospital access points and frequent pedestrian activity creates a complex environment in which a safer, more visible crossing point and lower operating speeds are required.

A further fifteen injury crashes occurred within approximately 600 metres of the Horsham West precinct around Hillary, Kirwood and Mathoura Streets between 2012 and 2023. These comprised four serious-injury and eleven other-injury crashes. Unlike the hospital frontage, this cluster has a strong mid-block component and includes recorded pedestrian strikes. This evidence highlighted the need to place crossing facilities on the pedestrian desire lines used for trips to and from Horsham West Primary School, rather than relying only on intersection controls.

How the preferred treatment was identified

The crash review showed three related problems: turning conflicts at intersections, pedestrian exposure at mid-block locations and vehicle speeds that are not well matched to school and hospital activity. Council therefore considered a treatment that would do more than mark a crossing point. Raised pedestrian crossings—commonly called wombat crossings—combine pedestrian priority, improved visibility and physical speed management in a single facility.

The treatment is supported by broader road-safety evidence. Austroads reports that wombat crossings can reduce casualty crashes by approximately 40%, serious and minor injury crashes by approximately 30%, and vehicle–pedestrian crashes by approximately 45%. They can also reduce 85th-percentile speeds by up to 9 km/h and mean speeds by up to 8 km/h. These figures are general treatment-effect estimates rather than guaranteed outcomes at an individual site, but they demonstrate why raised crossings are well suited to school zones and other locations with high pedestrian activity.

Taken together, the local crash history, the concentration of pedestrian-generating land uses and the established effectiveness of raised crossings led to a coordinated package of five facilities. The package targets known hotspots while creating a clearer and more consistent pedestrian-safety environment across Baillie Street and the Horsham West school precinct.

Expected safety outcome

The completed package is intended to lower vehicle speeds at the point of pedestrian conflict, make people crossing more visible, clarify pedestrian priority and provide safer connections to schools and the hospital precinct. By treating the five locations as a coordinated corridor and precinct response, the project addresses both the recorded crash history and the underlying movement patterns that created the risk.

Project Funding

This project has been funded entirely through a grant received from the Transport Accident Commission (TAC).

Community feedback will be considered as part of the final design process before construction commences. Council appreciates your time and input in helping create safer streets for the Horsham community.

Council values your feedback and encourages all residents, businesses and road users to review the proposed designs and complete the community survey.

___

Have your say by 23 August 2026

How to have your say:

Online

• Completing the survey below

In writing

• Post your submission to:

Engineering and Capital Projects

Horsham Rural City Council

PO Box 511, HORSHAM VIC 3402

• Email council@hrcc.vic.gov.au

Proposed Raised Pedestrian Crossings – We Want Your Feedback

Horsham Rural City Council is seeking community feedback on a series of proposed raised pedestrian crossings across central Horsham. The project aims to improve safety, accessibility and connectivity for pedestrians while supporting safer travel throughout the community.

The proposed crossings are located at:

  • Baillie Street and Hillary Street
  • Baillie Street near Horsham College and Federation University
  • Baillie Street near Wimmera Base Hospital
  • Hillary Street and Kirwood Street
  • Mathoura Street and Kooyong Street

These locations have been identified due to high levels of pedestrian activity, regular vehicle movements and their importance in connecting schools, healthcare facilities, residential areas and other community destinations.

The proposed raised pedestrian crossings are intended to:

  • Improve pedestrian safety by reducing vehicle speeds.
  • Increase driver awareness at key crossing locations.
  • Provide safer access for students, parents, carers, hospital patients, staff and visitors.
  • Improve accessibility and encourage walking throughout the precinct.

The proposal near Wimmera Base Hospital also includes formalising a 40 km/h speed zone, replacing the existing advisory speed environment to further improve pedestrian safety.

The project will also include associated pavement works, drainage modifications, signage and line marking improvements where required.

Why the treatment is needed

Baillie Street is an important movement corridor linking schools, the Wimmera Base Hospital and surrounding residential areas. These land uses generate regular pedestrian trips by students, families, hospital visitors, staff, older people and other vulnerable road users. A review of recorded crashes from 2012 to 2023 identified a persistent pattern of injury crashes around the locations where people most commonly need to cross.

Within the Baillie Street school zone, nine injury crashes were recorded between 2012 and 2023: three serious-injury crashes and six other-injury crashes. The pattern is dominated by turning conflicts at T-intersections, together with some mid-block incidents. This indicates that risk is not confined to a single point; it follows the routes used by students and families moving between the school and nearby streets and land uses.

The concentration is higher along the Wimmera Base Hospital frontage. Fifteen injury crashes were recorded between 2013 and 2023, including six serious-injury and nine other-injury crashes. Nearly all were vehicle-to-vehicle crashes at cross-intersections. The combination of higher traffic volumes, turning movements into hospital access points and frequent pedestrian activity creates a complex environment in which a safer, more visible crossing point and lower operating speeds are required.

A further fifteen injury crashes occurred within approximately 600 metres of the Horsham West precinct around Hillary, Kirwood and Mathoura Streets between 2012 and 2023. These comprised four serious-injury and eleven other-injury crashes. Unlike the hospital frontage, this cluster has a strong mid-block component and includes recorded pedestrian strikes. This evidence highlighted the need to place crossing facilities on the pedestrian desire lines used for trips to and from Horsham West Primary School, rather than relying only on intersection controls.

How the preferred treatment was identified

The crash review showed three related problems: turning conflicts at intersections, pedestrian exposure at mid-block locations and vehicle speeds that are not well matched to school and hospital activity. Council therefore considered a treatment that would do more than mark a crossing point. Raised pedestrian crossings—commonly called wombat crossings—combine pedestrian priority, improved visibility and physical speed management in a single facility.

The treatment is supported by broader road-safety evidence. Austroads reports that wombat crossings can reduce casualty crashes by approximately 40%, serious and minor injury crashes by approximately 30%, and vehicle–pedestrian crashes by approximately 45%. They can also reduce 85th-percentile speeds by up to 9 km/h and mean speeds by up to 8 km/h. These figures are general treatment-effect estimates rather than guaranteed outcomes at an individual site, but they demonstrate why raised crossings are well suited to school zones and other locations with high pedestrian activity.

Taken together, the local crash history, the concentration of pedestrian-generating land uses and the established effectiveness of raised crossings led to a coordinated package of five facilities. The package targets known hotspots while creating a clearer and more consistent pedestrian-safety environment across Baillie Street and the Horsham West school precinct.

Expected safety outcome

The completed package is intended to lower vehicle speeds at the point of pedestrian conflict, make people crossing more visible, clarify pedestrian priority and provide safer connections to schools and the hospital precinct. By treating the five locations as a coordinated corridor and precinct response, the project addresses both the recorded crash history and the underlying movement patterns that created the risk.

Project Funding

This project has been funded entirely through a grant received from the Transport Accident Commission (TAC).

Community feedback will be considered as part of the final design process before construction commences. Council appreciates your time and input in helping create safer streets for the Horsham community.

Council values your feedback and encourages all residents, businesses and road users to review the proposed designs and complete the community survey.

___

Have your say by 23 August 2026

How to have your say:

Online

• Completing the survey below

In writing

• Post your submission to:

Engineering and Capital Projects

Horsham Rural City Council

PO Box 511, HORSHAM VIC 3402

• Email council@hrcc.vic.gov.au

  • Provide your feedback about this project.

    Take Survey
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Page last updated: 07 Aug 2026, 12:38 PM