Streets Ahead in Islington
Via This is London, the London borough of Islington is going to ramp up its number of 20-mph zones:
Islington council has agreed to introduce the limit in January to cut accidents, congestion and pollution. More than 150 miles of road will be affected, with motorists able to drive at 30mph on just 15 out of 1,420 streets…
This year the Government announced plans intended to reduce the number of road accidents, with a 10-year target of lowering traffic deaths by a third. As well as 20mph limits in residential areas, the plans include a tougher driving test and cutting the speed limit at accident black spots on some A-roads from 60mph to 50mph.
In London, 31 of the 33 councils have introduced a total of 400 20mph zones. In Islington half of the roads already have the limits.
Rather than rote anti-jaywalking campaigns and the like, it’s nice to see some sanity entering the issue of urban speed. The recently released findings on pedestrian safety in cities, which again found Florida hogging several of the most-dangerous spots, speak to this; it’s not uncommon, in cities like Orlando, to see 40-mph zones in dense, pedestrian-heavy areas.
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This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 8:26 am and is filed under Pedestrians, Traffic Engineering, Traffic safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 7th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I’d love to bike on those roads!! Apparently it’s a state rule that city roads can’t be less than 30mph here.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:52 am
It is quite amazing to see a collection of people who recognize that speed is a major factor in crashes (not accidents!) and are willing to do something about it.
Yeah, forget Orlando, and so many other places in FL. One community in the Orlando area, I’ve forgotten where, was having problems with traffic-light-avoidance drivers cutting through their neighborhood. They installed speed bumps at their own expense and were forced to remove them, or had them removed. I didn’t think of it at the time, but a simple solution to their problem would have been to put some local residents on bikes on the cut-through roads, operating in a safe, vehicular manner. Make the road unattractive to use as a cut-through and things will slow down.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:45 am
It is good to see positive action to reduce speed limits in higher risk residential areas, but it does seem to be fairly meaningless without enforcement and driver awareness of the issues. The UK seems to be having a bit of a crisis in terms of speed limits and enforcement, with many drivers strongly opposed to speed cameras, which they see as a revenue-raising system and not a safety issue (and remember, all UK speed cameras are painted in bright colours so that drivers can see them and slow down to the legal limit in time).
A 20mph limit is only any good if people stick to it and/or it is enforced and most likely neither will happen. I would be more impressed if Islington had proposed more natural methods of speed control, like the DIY streets mentioned last week.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Jules wrote:
“…all UK speed cameras are painted in bright colours so that drivers can see them and slow down to the legal limit in time.”
Kevin’s comment:
As a result, what is being punished is not only dangerous speed, but careless, inattentive drivers. That works for me.