On Tuesday, lord mayor Graham Quirk announced the speed limit reduction on Ann Street from 60km/h to 40km/h, from Creek Street to the Riverside Expressway, as well as new and upgraded pedestrian crossings, in response to the council’s pedestrian safety review.

“It is now evident from the number of recent pedestrian-related road incidents that more can be done to improve safety for pedestrians in both the CBD and suburbs,” Cr Quirk said.

There have been several incidents involving pedestrians in Brisbane recently, including the death of Ann Marie Stent, who lost her life on May 22 after being hit by a bus while crossing Ann Street.

Cr Quirk said all other streets in Brisbane CBD would remain at 40km/h.

“There seems to have been two drivers for incidents in other streets in our CBD and they centre around pedestrian inattention or impatience,” he said.

“There is no evidence to suggest that incidents are speed related.

“I think 40km/h is a safe speed.”

There have been 16 pedestrian incidents at crossings on Adelaide Street, which has had a 40km/h speed limit since 2009, in five years.

Pedestrians groups, bicycle groups and non-administration councillors have been calling for speed limits to be reduced to 30km/h in Brisbane CBD.

Opposition councillor Jared Cassidy said while the speed reduction on Ann Street was a step in the right direction, more needed to be done.

“We would like to see an immediate trial of 30km/h speed limits in the rest of the CBD,” he said.

“We think the lord mayor’s wrong. Research around the world shows that when you reduce the speed limit to 30km/h the rate of fatality almost is completely eliminated.

“We want our streets to be safe for pedestrians. We want to give our CBD back to the people.

“We want to see less vehicles and more cyclists and more pedestrians using our CBD.”

The council reduced the speed limit to 40km/h on a majority of CBD streets in 2009 in an attempt to slow the accident rate, but Ann and Turbot streets remained at 60km/h.

When then-lord mayor Campbell Newman introduced the 40km/h CBD speed limit in 2009, both Ann and Turbot streets remained 60km/h as they were considered major cross-city thoroughfares.

Ann Street will now be reduced to 40km/h, but the speed limit on Turbot Street will remain at 60km/h.

Greens councillor Jonathan Sri (The Gabba) said the council had previously ruled out 40km/h as an option for Ann Street, but over time the council came to realise it was the common sense change that was needed for the inner city.

“The long-term future for busy inner-city areas that are dominated by pedestrians is slower speed limits and other cities around the world are well ahead of this,” he said.

“We’ve seen cities like Paris, Melbourne, London, everyone is experimenting with lower and lower speed limits and the pay off is dramatic.

“I think long-term we will see speed limits in Brisbane drop to 30km/h, including on Ann Street, it’s just a matter of time.”

Cr Sri said the council’s refusal to trial 30km/h showed that the administration was extremely conservative.

“They don’t think outside the box, they don’t look at what’s working in other cities around the world.

“I actually think they do a really bad job of listening to what resident’s want.

“This [a 30km/h CBD speed limit] is something a lot of people have been asking for, it’s something that will reduce congestion by encouraging more people to walk and ride and it will improve safety dramatically."

As part of the pedestrian safety improvements the council will install a pedestrian crossing with traffic lights along Adelaide Street, between Albert and Edward streets.

It would also upgrade the crossings at Albert and Charlotte streets and Albert and Mary streets to scramble crossings, similar to the intersection of Edward and Adelaide streets, which would allow pedestrians to cross diagonally.

Cr Quirk said he wanted to get the initial pedestrian safety package going as soon as possible.

“As soon as logisticallyically able to be done we will do it,” he said.