Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

amsterdam.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 202 posts

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#61

Post by rtpg »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #9
Tomis02 wrote: post #5

That's amazing. Meanwhile, in some other first world countries (allegedly): "come on bro, just one more lane, and increase the speed limit, that'll definitely fix traffic and make everything better".

In Sydney it is one more tunnel! I am not against it as the infra could be used by an army of electric buses that could be a psuedo-metro. Please do that!

Seriously, at least in France the big success story in my book has been the use of heavy-duty buses to expand transit networks. You just gotta take over existing lanes, and you make your main bus lanes have buses every 5 minutes or so. It's not ideal but it exists and works.

Highly recommend as an alternative to wishing for metro lines.

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#62

Post by throwawa14223 »

ebabani wrote: post #42
gotoeleven wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The fuck are you going on about? You think everyone driving is ever going to be sustainable?

Out of curiosity why wouldn't it be? Technology is improving all the time. We'll solve CO2 in the atmosphere and at the point every person on earth will want a green car.

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#64

Post by caturopath »

dbg31415 wrote: post #28

That’s crazy slow! I can’t even begin to think of how long it would take to get anywhere. By comparison, “The Texas Transportation Commission is allowed to bump up the speed limit in certain sections to 75, 80 and 85 mph, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. The speed limit can be raised if the highway is deemed safe and reasonable..” Also.. you can typically avoid a ticket by arguing you were still d…

I'm pretty sympathetic to both Amsterdam's 30km/h thing (and the campaigns for 20mph speed limits for most streets in many cities in the US) and Texas' 75mph-standard, lots-of-80 and -85mph areas policy. These are completely different situations. One is for rural highway (for 85, controlled access highway with underpasses/overpasses), the other is for city streets where people live, walk, bike, etc. Neighborhood streets in Texas don't have 75mph speed limits.

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#65

Post by olyjohn »

gumballindie wrote: post #39
vbezhenar wrote: post #23

Sounds terrible. I wouldn't want to live in that city.

It is terrible. They introduced similar speed limits in parts of London UK and it sucks. It does help with noise pollution but driving in London on empty roads at 20 mph is horrible.

Seattle dropped residential speed limits to 20mph some time ago. Havent followed up to see what impact that has had yet... Most roads though still kepts their old speed limits.

What happens in the US when speeds are too low, is you get half the people obeying it, and half of them driving way faster. It creates a dangerous conflict q lot of times. People road rage like crazy in some areas and will do dangerous shit like pass slower cars in unsafe places, tailgate, cut people off, etc.

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#66

Post by mdon »

virtue3 wrote: post #10
Tomis02 wrote: post #5

That's amazing. Meanwhile, in some other first world countries (allegedly): "come on bro, just one more lane, and increase the speed limit, that'll definitely fix traffic and make everything better".

Yeah it's a known thing now that widening highways / adding more throughput does not ease congestion etc. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/widen-highways-traffic... .

perhaps the goal isn't eliminating congestion, but allowing more mobility. meaning people can accomplish more things, make more trips.

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#67

Post by betaby »

SamBam wrote: post #24
betaby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the thing, apartments in US/Canada are in 'trashier' pockets of the city. Single family homes are well located mostly and don't have such problems. Reason is simply - apartments were put there they are well after city was fully developed. Speaking from my experience in Toronto/Montreal areas. Thus I disagree about traffic noise, it's a necessary evil. Real evil is vast zones of single family areas in the city li…

> Reason is simply - apartments were put there they are well after city was fully developed. I'm confused by this statement. In any older city in the US, like in any city in Europe, the heart of the city is apartment buildings. Those would have been the main part of the city by the time it was big enough to be called a "city." Single family homes were generally in later areas -- suburbs, or suburbs that got swallowed…

We are talking about very different apartments. Compare old city https://maps.app.goo.gl/t9TRsNMnQ93Yr42X7 and modern development in front of highway https://maps.app.goo.gl/yiL3UXuxRVd1c1oW8

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#68

Post by jacquesm »

CapsAdmin wrote: post #36
jeroenhd wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric bicycles aren't allowed to exceed 25km/h anyway, so legally only human-powered bikes can exceed the 30km/h speed limit. If the owners messed with their bikes to override the speed limiter, I doubt they'll care about the 30km/h signs. Mopeds and similar vehicles (the ones with license plates and mandatory helmets) will probably be hit the worst.

In Norway the law is stated such that you can get help from the bicycle engine to reach max 25km/h. It's not very difficult to reach 30km/h to 50km/h manually on a bicycle.

50 sustained is trained athlete level. Normal cyclists can't do that for any length of time.

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#69

Post by [deleted] »

dbg31415 wrote: post #28

That’s crazy slow! I can’t even begin to think of how long it would take to get anywhere. By comparison, “The Texas Transportation Commission is allowed to bump up the speed limit in certain sections to 75, 80 and 85 mph, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. The speed limit can be raised if the highway is deemed safe and reasonable..” Also.. you can typically avoid a ticket by arguing you were still d…

[deleted]

Re: Amsterdam Switches to 30 Km/h on 80% of its Roads

#70

Post by askvictor »

kart23 wrote: post #26

are bikes limited to 30 km/h also?

eBikes are limited to 25km/h on the motor I believe. But given how many people cycle in Amsterdam, I'd be surprised if you'd get much chance to actually get to that speed (on an eBike or legBike) very often.

But even so, the problem is not speed but momentum. A typical car+driver weighs at least 10x (actually, with modern cars it's more like 20x) a bike+rider. So at the same speed, a car will impart 10x the damage/force than a bicycle will. But cyclists are more careful as they don't have a protective metal box around them - if a cyclist collides with a pedestrian, the cyclist is almost certainly going down and getting injured, compared to a car, where the car occupant has zero consequences.

Post reply on HN