cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/7658487
For more detailed information: https://www.gov.wales/introducing-20mph-speed-limits-frequently-asked-questions
I’m in favor of lower speed limits, but this will result in a temporary uptick in speeding tickets, followed by loss of interest by local police, which yields no net change. Lowering the speed limit is a band aid fix. It’s quick. It’s cheap. But it can, by no means, be seen as a permanent solution. If you want people to slow down, you need to make a road that will make people want to slow down. So yeah, I like lower speed limits, but they cannot and do not work alone. It’s a step in the right direction, but more should be done.
They’re not just lowering the speed limit. From the FAQ:
Will the roll out involve money being spent on speed bumps?
There is no plan to include traffic calming (including speed bumps) as part of the change to speed limits. There are other ‘softer’ measures that might be introduced, such as using buffer speed limits, removing the centre line, narrowing the carriageway visually, using planting etc.
These ‘softer’ measures (which definitely are traffic calming) will be essential to make this plan a success. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada is going through a similar process of lowering speed limits in residential areas. The planning staff said they needed the speed lowered so they could implement these traffic calming measures, otherwise the speed limit would be higher than the street design can accommodate.
i can understand not strictly calling paint traffic calming, but planters? what galaxy brain definition of traffic calming are they using where placing a box on the road isn’t traffic calming?
My guess is the phrase “traffic calming” has negative connotations with the local general public due to poor implementation.
I’ve driven down streets that are 50km/h and I think most people would gladly do ≤60km/h. If that’s too fast, there’s many ways to ‘softly’ calm the speed like narrowing the road, chicanes, paving stones, etc. Instead, they have speed bumps ever couple kms so drivers slow to a crawl for the bump, then accelerate hard to >70km/h, then brake hard to go over the next bump.