Five years after Brisbane became one of the world's first cities to reduce CBD speed limits to 40 km/h, the initiative has been adopted in Sydney, London and New York.
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Brisbane City Council, under then Lord Mayor Campbell Newman, introduced the measure to all CBD streets except Ann and Turbot streets in 2009, in a bid to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety.
The decision to reduce speed limits from 50 km/h stemmed in part from two horror years on CBD streets in 2006 and 2007.
Collisions with cars claimed the life of a cyclist and a pedestrian in separate incidents in 2006 and hospitalised a further 21 pedestrians.
The following year, three pedestrians were killed.
Council figures presented in Tuesday's infrastructure committee meeting at City Hall showed dramatic reductions in pedestrian injury since the move was made.
No deaths have been recorded since 2009.
The average number of annual pedestrian hospitalisations has dropped from 16.3 prior to 2009 to 11.3 since 2009.
So far, this year alone, London, Sydney and New York have implemented similar schemes.
Those cities followed Perth, where it was enacted in 2011, and Melbourne, where it was rolled out in 2012.
Infrastructure chairman Adrian Schrinner said the Australian cities had looked at the Brisbane model before adopting it in their own CBD areas.
"Council's plan for the future is to make the CBD a pedestrian and cyclist friendly environment, because more and more people will be walking and cycling in future," he said.
"The decision was made to implement a lower speed limit, with the speed limit reduced from 50km/h to 40 km/h.
"Public consultation done at the time and that indicated 70 per cent support for the change in speed limit.
"The results since then show it was an effective policy move and has made the CBD safer for pedestrians and cyclists and is something a whole range of other cities have adopted."
Cr Schrinner said there were no current plans to expand the reduced speed limit area beyond the CBD but said that remained subject to ongoing review.
Department of Transport and Main Roads statistics presented to the committee showed a car's stopping distance at 40km/h is almost half that at 60 km/h.
It wasn't all good news, however.
The data showed the hospitalisation of cyclists grew from an average of 1.3 each year prior to 2009 to four each year after.
A council spokesman said that figure was attributable to an increased volume of cyclist traffic, with a 10 to 12 per cent increase in cyclist numbers recorded every year since 2009.
