Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
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Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#2> Buses and trams running on a separate track will still be allowed to drive 50 kilometers per hour.
Sounds like they're trying to encourage public transportation usage
Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#3> Buses and trams running on a separate track will still be allowed to drive 50 kilometers per hour. Sounds like they're trying to encourage public transportation usage
encouraging public transport use is only one reason to lower the speed limit. Noise and safety are others and maybe even independent of the will to encourage public transit use
Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#4The title makes it sound like streets in Amsterdam currently don't have a 30 km/h speed limit, and after December, they will all have a 30 km/h speed limit. The reality is that a lot of streets already have a 30 km/h speed limit, and have had them for years. It's been slowly expanding, and clearly will continue to expand even more. There will still be roads with higher speed limits, but their number will shrink. I expect they'll be limited to roads where cars don't interact with other traffic at all.
I think this is a good continuation of what's proven to be effective policy. Cars cause accidents, but slower cars cause less fatal accidents. Cars have always been a poor way to get around the city, and that was the case long before Amsterdam started putting bike infrastructure ahead of car infrastructure. But Amsterdam has been making that increasingly explicit in recent years: your car is just for getting out of the city, or for moving big stuff.
Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#5Yes! This will save at least 3 lives a year! Even one life counts!
Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#6In many older urban areas it's hard to get beyond 30km/hr just due to the traffic, narrow streets, lights, cobbles etc.
Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#7We've had a 20mph limit in towns here in Wales for a couple of weeks now. It seems to be going well where I am; the traffic is noticeably slower during the day (though the people who hoon about at night are still doing it) and the only negative effect I've noticed so far is it might be fractionally harder (as in one has to wait longer) to cross the road at places other than designated crossings, presumably because the traffic is now distributed slightly differently.
Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#8The title makes it sound like streets in Amsterdam currently don't have a 30 km/h speed limit, and after December, they will all have a 30 km/h speed limit. The reality is that a lot of streets already have a 30 km/h speed limit, and have had them for years. It's been slowly expanding, and clearly will continue to expand even more. There will still be roads with higher speed limits, but their number will shrink. I ex…
> the city will install almost 5,000 new speed signs, adjust 170 traffic lights
How is 5000 signs 'slowly' ?
Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#9My city has been limited to 30 km/h for a few years now.
As someone who is mostly by bike and by foot, sometimes in public transports and occasionally in a car, that has been a good thing.
The city is small and full of traffic lights, and there's a ring road, 50 to 30 km/h inside the city can't be increasing travel time too much for cars. I don't think it was possible to drive at 50 km/h in most of the city anyway.
(and the city could use less air pollution, I guess it helps a bit on this aspect in addition to the noise and the safety).
Congratulations to Amsterdam :-)
Re: Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
#10The title makes it sound like streets in Amsterdam currently don't have a 30 km/h speed limit, and after December, they will all have a 30 km/h speed limit. The reality is that a lot of streets already have a 30 km/h speed limit, and have had them for years. It's been slowly expanding, and clearly will continue to expand even more. There will still be roads with higher speed limits, but their number will shrink. I ex…
> the city will install almost 5,000 new speed signs, adjust 170 traffic lights How is 5000 signs 'slowly' ?
Presumably whilst 5000 sounds like a lot it probably isn’t? Each road impacted needing multiple signs and all that.