City of Hobart rejects bid to defer Collins Street trial review

The City of Hobart’s Hobart Workshop Committee has voted down a motion to defer its Collins Street trial review, keeping item 6.3 on the agenda at its 18 May meeting at the Buckingham Rowing Club in New Town. The motion was to push the item to a future open meeting when the elected member who raised the notice of motion was present.

Alderman M Zucco moved the deferral. The minutes record the motion as a request to defer item 6.3, Transforming Collins Street Trial: Consideration of a Deferred Council Meeting Agenda Item, to a future open Hobart Workshop Committee meeting when the elected member who raised the notice of motion was present. It was lost.

The committee also agreed to deal with supplementary items 9 and 10, which were not listed on the agenda and were reported by the chief executive officer.

Members then moved by majority to close the meeting to the public for confidential items under the Local Government (Meeting Procedures) Regulations 2025.

On Collins Street, the Director Strategic and Regulatory Services outlined the action taken to address safety issues raised through the notice of motion at the May 2026 Council meeting. The trial has a strict reporting regime with one-month, three-month and 12-month post-implementation reports, and seven metrics are being measured.

The report will be checked by an external consultant. Members were told the latest changes had been in place for about 2.5 weeks and no complaints had been received.

Councillors discussed traffic flow, traffic delays and accidents and near misses in Collins Street. They were told a new platform to measure and monitor traffic was fully operational and had been in place since the previous Thursday. Officers said monitoring to date showed no major constriction of traffic flow beyond what had been modelled, including the move from two lanes to one.

A report on accidents and incidents on Collins Street will go to Council in July. Data on the number of people using bike lanes, split between e-scooters and bikes, will also be reported in July.

The discussion also covered engagement with Metro, Red Decker and SkyBus on trials and turning movements. Officers said that since the stop line was moved in November 2025 there had been no further conversations apart from check-ins on how things were working, and that feedback had been positive.

Members raised the removal of the Victoria Street crossing, the five-minute drop zone outside Village Cinema, and the possibility of another drop-off parking spot further down Collins Street for people attending appointments. They also discussed using Barrack, Bathurst and Brisbane streets in peak hour rather than Davey and Macquarie streets.