I am of the view that a 50 kph speed limit is too high for local (non-arterial) urban roads. Aucklanders have a nasty habit of generally driving at about 10 kph over the speed limit, so often vehicles are travelling at around 60 kph along local roads that may have kids along them, certainly have a lot of people living along them and in general will be much nicer places with slower traffic.
Here’s a great video from Streetfilms on efforts in the UK and in New York City to lower the speed limit to 20 miles per hour (just over 30 kph) to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety, and to improve the general amenity of our cities:
Earlier this month, the New York City Department of Transportation announced plans to experiment with 20 mph zones — replacing the city’s default 30 mph speed limit in one pilot neighborhood. Whoever gets the first 20 mph treatment will see benefits that residents of British cities and towns have become increasingly familiar with in recent years.
In the UK, some 3 million people live in areas with 20 mph speed limits. The experience there shows that not only do slower speeds save lives, but lowering the limit to 20 mph improves the way local streets function in more ways than one. According to the 20’s Plenty for Us campaign, the change has produced wide-ranging benefits, including less traffic, increased walking and biking, greater independence for children, the elderly and infirm, better health, and calmer driving conditions for motorists.
The mission of 20’s Plenty For Us is to establish 20 mph as the default speed limit on all residential roads in the UK. I recently met up with the campaign’s founder, Rod King, as well as other advocates in the towns of Warrington and York, to understand how the idea of slowing down traffic has spread so fast throughout the country.
Even if we dropped the speed limit of all non-arterial local roads in Auckland to 40 kph, I think it would make a huge improvement to the safety and quality of life in our city.
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I’m with you on this one. The other day I saw something completely normal – late model cars speeding at great speed up and down Parnell Rise. Why? Because they could, because the men and women behind the wheel had small minds, because the road practically invites people to do so.
The net result is problems for people wanting to cross the road there to access Fraser Park.
I note that College Hill suffers the same problem of people speeding up and down that hill.
New Zealand should change to the ‘grace’ area being 3km/hr over the speed limit. Make everyone aware of it and bring it in on the 1st of January. It is a limit after all.
In Alberta, Canada they have playground zones. These are 30km/hr from morning till 1hr after sunset. These are placed around areas like parks (there are school zones which are similar). These zones are enforced and can be quite long (ie a couple of km). This would target the areas that kids are most, easing the country’s psyche into reduced speeds.
Mike – sadly, that would result in a lot of “revenue gathering!!!” screams plastered all across the media. Politicians hate that. So I think we need to physically change our roads to make speeding less inviting. Narrow them (preferably with cut-throughs at the new pinch points for the cyclists though), put speed tables across them. Move the parking in, and put copenhagen cycle lanes behing them. Create chicanes by alternating parking each side. All that is pretty cheap to do. It just takes some courage.
Amusingly the defacto motorway in Flat Bush has cycle lanes.
Why do you feel that’s amusing? I am very negative on cycle lanes on 6-8 lane roads (even if they are carried through the intersections, it will be still to intimidating for most potential cyclists), but on 2-4 lane roads they are a reasonable proposition.
It is amusing because I cna imagine the traffic engineer saying ” yes I know it is a defacto motorway with a 100 kph design speed through the middle of the town centre, but I gave you transport hippies a cycle lane so shut up about it!”
I pity any cyclist that needs to turn right at any point on that road.
reduced road speeds need good enforcement. but its so hard to reduce speed when the design is telling you you can go faster. roads in the UK, especially in these 20mph zones are much narrower and lend themselves to lower speeds. its so hard to tell yourself to drive slower when the roads are designed for much greater speeds.
In the UK, a new residential street would be 5.5m, including on street parking, and we were advocating for reducing this. the picture you show of Stonefields in the previous post does show an “improvement” in reducing width, but is still 6m wide with car parking bays on top of that, ie. still 11m wide effectively – double the width of UK residential streets.
but you try arguing for reducing our streets even further!
this is a great video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9BUyWVg1xI
Here in Changwon near schools, they nasty steep judder bars..over 50km over those= nasty jolt and screw suspension in no time.
Have a look at this idea, its a speed camera that takes photos of speeders and those driving to the limit. Its also a lottery the speeders get fined and the money goes into a pot that drivers who aren’t speeding can win. While this was being tested there was an average reduction in speed of 7km/h or 22%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iynzHWwJXaA&feature=player_embedded
Thanks for your article. I would like to see more done to look after people who want to use alternative means of transport like cycling. I am sick of being cut off by the likes of buses. http://bit.ly/glda7G
Here’s an idea on how to make people go slower. The fines go into a lottery that people who obey the law are automatically entered into.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iynzHWwJXaA&feature=player_embedded