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

amsterdam.nl

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

#91

Post by kart23 »

askvictor wrote: post #70
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/fo…

what do you mean given how many people cycle, are you not allowed to ride on the street with cars?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiJUV3Av-W8

This guy is doing around 40kmh on a ride through the city. granted he's an extreme outlier, but it's definitely possible.

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

#92

Post by toomim »

joeman1000 wrote: post #87
vbezhenar wrote: post #23

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

You mustn’t do much walking in your life then.

Or maybe he's like me, and both walks and drives, and doesn't want anybody to have to sit in a car wasting their life for longer than necessary.

Efficiency matters.

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

#93

Post by jacquesm »

sva_ wrote: post #84
jacquesm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 million / year is 5500 euros / day or about 100 infractions. On a city of 100k I'd say they missed a couple ;)

A lot are actually missed by not getting a good photo and probably other reasons. I've seen the flashing light around 4 to 5 times already, but have only ever gotten 1 ticket (where they changed the speed from 50 to 30 and immediately put up a camera - bastards.)

They probably get great photos but the camera may be set to the actual limit whereas the fine only comes when you exceed that limit by a certain amount.

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

#94

Post by jacquesm »

dietr1ch wrote: post #57
whalesalad wrote: post #29

18 miles per hour? My average pace on a bicycle is 20 mph. This is hysterical.

It'll be interesting to see the average speed change after this? Traffic jams don't care about speed limits. I'm guessing that the improvements in efficiency (fuel, noise, wear) and safety are probably going to be worth it. Also, I don't see cars being a fast way to get through the city with today's speed limits, I'd say my 6km commute in SF is faster on bike, especially after accounting for parking.

It is very hard to be faster than a bike in Amsterdam.

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

#95

Post by ignormies »

whalesalad wrote: post #29

18 miles per hour? My average pace on a bicycle is 20 mph. This is hysterical.

That's kind of the point. Part of the design of Dutch cities is to make the fastest, most direct, most convenient form of transportation _not_ the car.

You use a car when you _have_ to, not simply as a default. If it takes longer to get to your intra-city destination in a car, that's the city working as intended.

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

#96

Post by jacquesm »

toomim wrote: post #80
gumballindie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also happened in Portland in 2018, and it sucks, and makes me avoid Portland. The speed limit is 20mph on most roads, no matter how many lanes of empty tarmac there is, what time of day it is, with how much visibility, how straight the road is, etc. It's a blind political statement with no regard to the actual roads and their circumstances.

> makes me avoid Portland

It worked!

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

#97

Post by jacquesm »

kart23 wrote: post #91
askvictor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/fo…

what do you mean given how many people cycle, are you not allowed to ride on the street with cars? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiJUV3Av-W8 This guy is doing around 40kmh on a ride through the city. granted he's an extreme outlier, but it's definitely possible.

That guy is nuts and shouldn't be cycling at all. Many, many examples of endangering other users of the road because of his ridiculous speed.

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

#98

Post by jacquesm »

SECProto wrote: post #77
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…

> That’s crazy slow! I can’t even begin to think of how long it would take to get anywhere. By comparison, “The Texas [...] Amsterdam is roughly 25km across, so less than an hour on surface streets (which this is about). Meanwhile, Austin Tx is a similar population, roughly 30 miles across, and takes ~50 minutes to drive across if you avoid the freeway. They're pretty much identical (but Amsterdam's streets will be m…

And the inner ring part of Amsterdam, which is were most of the action is is less than 7.5 km across, rarely would you visit more than one outlying area and the center in a single trip, and if you did you might take your bike on the subway (outside of the rush hour only) for the long stretch. Small foldables are always legal and don't have a surcharge.

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

#99

Post by twelve40 »

Nthringas wrote: post #16
ls612 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the expectation is that the government can put up speed cameras everywhere and make a shit ton of money.

i'm pretty sure that's only a legit business model in the usa

> i'm pretty sure that's only a legit business model in the usa

lolwut? i haven't gotten a single camera-based ticket, ever - many decades of driving in the US - unlike say Italy where every time i drive (about once in 5 years) i seem to break some stupid minor rule and get a photo ticket

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

#100

Post by jacquesm »

senkora wrote: post #6
photoGrant wrote: post #2

I like it mainly because this probably is limiting electric bikes more than restricting cars. It's a lil' difficult for cars to hit 50 /too often/ and I say this anecdotally but those bikes in a very 'bike friendly' city are blurring lines and only getting faster.

One thing that really surprised me about London when I visited (and people told me that this was also true for the EU and so presumably Amsterdam), was that ebikes are limited to a top speed of 15mph before pedaling. If I heard correctly, it sounds like this won’t affect ebikes? This surprised me because in NYC ebikes are limited to 25mph before pedaling.

That's an EU thing and aims to make it safe to put e-bikes on the bike paths instead of in the car lanes. It groups vehicles with similar speed and relative weight together.
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