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Amsterdam preparing to lower speed limit to 30 kilometers per hour
- sporkland 3y agoSan Francisco has been lowering speed limits on a number of streets recently https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/sf-street-speed-limits-lowered-to-20-mph-18276869.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/sf-street-speed-limit...
- OsrsNeedsf2P 3y ago> 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
- LeanderK 3y agoencouraging 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
- thinkingemote 3y agoIn many older urban areas it's hard to get beyond 30km/hr just due to the traffic, narrow streets, lights, cobbles etc.
- Vinnl 3y agoIn many (also newer) urban areas in the Netherlands, narrow streets and cobbles are used intentionally to encourage lower speeds. The "30" sign is more of a last resort in that sense.
- wink 3y agocycling on cobblestone sucks though, so not sure how that really works out :P (Let's assume there's no dedicated cycle path next to the cobblestone road, guess it depends)
- Vinnl 3y agoAh sorry, I was actually thinking of paving stones - but it still holds that those are usually used to encourage lower driving speeds than asphalt, and are way more comfortable than cobblestones for cycling. You also see asphalt in use more and more often in streets where the number of cyclists are significant enough that cars are forced to drive slowly anyway.
- mcv 3y agoThe Dam square in the centre of Amsterdam has extremely bumpy cobblestones. It's not impossible to bike on, but even for bikes it's more comfortable if you go a bit slower than usual, which might be the intention. The lines between the lanes are made from much smoother stone though, so when I'm in a hurry, I just ride on those lines.
- mcv 3y agoThe 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.
- lamontcg 3y agoSeattle did this a few years ago, but without bothering to do much of any of the rest of the infrastructure changes. Without enforcement, the speed limits largely just get ignored. If we had enforcement, you can bet it would immediately become a selective enforcement issue.
- marssaxman 3y agoDoes changing the number on the sign actually cause the cars to move more slowly, in Amsterdam? That's not been the case where I've seen it done here in Seattle; people simply drive as fast as the road design makes it comfortable to drive.
- jochem9 3y agoThere are also plans to change the road designs. First some new painted lines, later, when the road is up for renovation, a redesign to make it more obviously 30km/h. People in Amsterdam tend to behave the same as how you describe the people in Seattle.
- the-dude 3y ago> the city will install almost 5,000 new speed signs, adjust 170 traffic lights How is 5000 signs 'slowly' ?
- KBme 3y agoYes! This will save at least 3 lives a year! Even one life counts!
- okokwhatever 3y agoCities are not a place for me live anymore. Airbnb, Uber, Uber-eats, delivery robots, security cameras everywhere, gentrification, poverty... It's ok if you guys feel this is normal but for me it´s too much. Cities were vibrant places to share experiences that today are a complete mess of zombies taking pictures for the trendy social network. And this is just one more drop to make cities more soulless and "2030 ready" for people who does not really exist. I cannot say this is useless, it's just another politically correct decision to deal with. Too much already for me at least.
- pjc50 3y agoThis is a real "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" argument.
- rsynnott 3y agoWait, reducing the numbers of cars in the city makes it _more_ soulless? How on earth does that work? Like, was an important part of your urban experience traffic noise, or the sound of ambulance sirens going to pick up a dead pedestrian? I'm genuinely a bit baffled by where you're coming from here.
- matsemann 3y agoYou got cause and effect completely backwards. The "soulless" cities are the cities full of cars and asphalt. The nice cities are the ones where people can use the city, where communities gather outside, there are markets, people eating by the curbside, kids playing. Where the city isn't dominated by the cars.
- Doctor_Fegg 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2tOye9DKdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2tOye9DKdQ
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- mpclark 3y agoWe'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.
- anonymousDan 3y agoYeah I moved a short distance in London to an area that is all 20mph and for me the most noticeable change is the reduction in noise levels (the limits in the previous area were generally 30mph). The new area feels so much more peaceful. It surprised me how much difference a 10mph drop makes.
- matsemann 3y agoIt's also surprising how much safer that little speed change is for pedestrians/cyclists if they were to get hit. https://www.nullvisjonen-agder.no/images/grafikk/dodsrisiko-1.jpg https://www.nullvisjonen-agder.no/images/grafikk/dodsrisiko-... Speed in km/h vs death rate. From about 10% death (90% survival) at 30 km/h (~18mph) to about 80% death (only 20% survival!) at 50 km/h (~31 mph)
- mcv 3y agoI think this is by far the biggest reason for the preference for 30 km/h. Reduced noise and pollution are certainly nice, but killing far less people is huge.
- anonymousDan 3y agoSure, as a sometime cyclist I am not discounting that as a reason. I made the comment above as I found it was something that perhaps isn't mentioned as much but really does give an immediate quality of life improvement.
- jraph 3y agoMy 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 :-)
- matsemann 3y agoI'm fan of the concept of superblocks. You can drive inside them, but not between them. Want to go from block A to D? Can't drive through B and C. Need to drive out to the ring road, then follow it and into block D. Makes it so that no through traffic at speed goes through the areas where people live and stay.
- pjc50 3y agoThe mere suggestion of this in Oxford has caused people to go completely mental and invoke all sorts of WEF conspiracy theories. It might work but the public transport alternatives need to be the working default first.
- Muromec 3y agoI heard the one about 15 minutes cities. Which is like normal quality of life aspiration, but then tinfoil hat goes “… and then they will put a wall around it”. It’s ridiculous
- Symbiote 3y agoThe crazy thing is this conspiracy is being spread by the people who bemoan the loss of freedom for their children/grandchildren -- it's not safe for children to play outside like we did, too many cars; used to be able to send the kids down to the shop to buy pop, etc.
- Mistletoe 3y agoLet me save a lot of you a google. 18.6 mph.
- gnuunitsbot 3y agoYou have: 30kmph You want: mph * 30000
- userbinator 3y agoThere's probably a huge cultural difference here, but the image there sure does not look like a 30km/h street to me --- more like a 30mph one. That said, I've seen pictures of other European streets, far narrower and meandering, where even 30km/h would seem too fast. It is also launching a campaign with the slogan: “We drive 30 for each other.” Not surprisingly, the socialism is blatantly obvious.
- the_gipsy 3y agoDid you mean to say "communism"? "Socialism" has a different connotation in Europe: it often means something softer, like just "social in nature" or "socially just".
- pastyboy 3y agoSocialism has a 100 different flavours, there isn't one universal version. Social democracy maybe.
- spiderfarmer 3y agoNo he probably meant he doesn't want to care about other people if it impacts him personally.
- mcv 3y agoYou can drive as fast as you want if you drive on a private road in the middle of nowhere with nobody else around. If you don't want to care about other people, cities are not the right places to go.
- silversmith 3y agoThe street looks that way because up until now the speed limit was 50km/h, or about 30mph.
- jrockway 3y agoUltimately the safest ways to prevent traffic deaths are to redesign the street so that drivers don't feel safe exceeding the speed limit. Amsterdam is certainly working on that, but it takes time to rebuild a street. The speed limit is a nice way of saying "if you're paying attention, you can be safer by doing this thing" while waiting for city-wide roadwork to complete. It's pretty clear to me that automobiles and urban life basically don't coexist. They tragedy of the commons'd every city they touched. A car is great if only you have one, but not so great when everyone has one. This realization is not socialism, but more like rolling back a failed experiment. You can still drive your pickup truck 300 miles per hour on your farm or whatever if you want. Just not through dense cities, where most people are walking or cycling.
- warrenmiller 3y agoThis is wonderful. remember : Cities aren't noisy, Cars are noisy.
- okokwhatever 3y agoCities arent noisy?? where do you live lucky mate? I feel you guys live in an echo chamber full of avocado toasts and cappuccinos. Cities are crowded places full of noise pollution produced by humans being humans. Thats all. If people require silence go to the deep country. Next step, everybody shut the f... up to not bother the Karens.
- Vinnl 3y ago"City" is a broad term, encompassing e.g. NYC, but also Amsterdam, with a population of a mere 900k. Most parts of Amsterdam are really pretty quiet when there are no/few/slow-driving cars.
- okokwhatever 3y agoIts so funny everybody is talking just about Amsterdam. Try this in Rome and then lets talk again. Guys, you´re forgetting cities are cultural places not robot factories. Cultural and existential differences are real and shouldn't be imposed by law just to recall quietness in a crowded place like a city in Europe where people live in the streets as a cultural thing. We´re constantly educating the population by law and not by the example and it´s to retrograde.
- pjc50 3y agoYou're fighting shadows again. The human noise of people as in Rome is the kind of thing people are trying to optimize _for_, because there's an inherent tension between high speed cars and pavement cafes. Admittedly Rome has both, but not on the same streets.
- michaelhoney 3y agoVenice is in Italy. I have stood outside at night and basked in the relative silence.
- jrockway 3y agoThat's getting close to something reasonable to achieve on a (non-"e") bicycle. I have always wanted to get a speeding ticket on my bike, but never have.
- lostlogin 3y agoJust checked, my fairly hilly commute on a bike averages about 25kmh. That would mean exceeding 30 for a fair bit of the ride. I have never seen anyone get a ticket on a bike for anything. It would be more like a badge of honour I think.
- bronikowski 3y agoOnce I had a cop point a speed gun on me when I rode in deep outskirts of Poland on a road limited to 30kmh. I think he was just joking and passing time seeing that in the hours I rode on that road maybe 10 cars passed me by. (the only two tickets I got in my life were on bike)
- maccard 3y agoIn the UK, speed limits don't apply to cyclists so you'll be disappointed if you try it here.
- dagw 3y agoBut you can could get ticketed for dangerous cycling if you're going 'too fast' in the wrong place.
- thorin 3y agoWales (UK) did this about a week ago. Setting 20mph as a limit in urban areas. I was there yesterday and now the problem is that it's very unclear where exactly it applies and if it will be enforced. Also satnavs such as Apple and Google maps have not been updated for the new speeds leading to further confusion. There are some areas where this makes sense, but a blanket change seems political. Hopefully it will cause less pollution and accidents in the future and not just be used as a money making scheme for fining people.
- pastyboy 3y agoLess pollution not so much, everyone will be in 2nd gear, less deaths perhaps.
- okokwhatever 3y agoIs demonstrated pollution with such slow speed will increase dramatically. Next stage, take out cars from the center of the cities totally. Good luck if you bought there a house to take your kids to the college or to go to a better supermarket. Airbnb is rubbing hands
- rsynnott 3y agoSo, first of all, realistically most cars in cities are operating at these sorts of speeds for _most_ of the time, anyway. This won't make a huge difference to _average_ speed. But also, this feels like optimising for the past, frankly. Over 50% of cars sold in the EU last year were either electric, or some sort of hybrid (hybrids generally are about as efficient at 30km/h as 50km/h). Netherlands seems to be further along this curve; 45% of cars sold last year were electric or plugin hybrid (stats seem hard to come by for light hybrids), up from 30% the previous year.
- shortcake27 3y agoI don’t understand this comment. In a city like Amsterdam you certainly don’t need a car to go to the supermarket or college. I’ve lived in cities with far worse public transport and no car and had no issues.
- junglistguy 3y ago[dead]
- secretsatan 3y agoThe city I live in enacted 30kph limits at night this year, throughout the city, which is nice. Most of the roads aren't that congested where I am already, I think the road I live on used to be a major through road, it's wide with multiple lanes, but hardly any traffic so I think it benefited from some previous work. But still, it's even quieter in the evening now They also turn off traffic lights out of peak hours, this gives priority to pedestrians but doesn't hold up the odd car.
- eb0la 3y agoI wonder if car manufacturers are working with this limitations in mind. I feel cars with combustion engines suffer at 20-30 km/h but electrics seems to be okay with that. Am I right?
- shortcake27 3y agoWhat do you mean by suffer? I’ve never had any problem driving at any speed in any car apart from crawling (1-2km/h) in a manual.
- dagw 3y agoCurrent petrol engines are designed operate at optimal efficiency in the 60-90 km/h range. Electric cars on the other hand can operate efficiently at much lower speeds due to how electric engines work. Efficiency here primarily refers to km/unit of energy. So if you care about minimising pollution in the city centres it's much better if all cars can drive either 70 km/h or not at all through city centres.
- em500 3y agoAnd of course regenerative braking greatly enhances electric car efficiency in city driving. The flip side is that the battery gauge usually drops alarmingly fast on the highway if you're mostly used to city driving.
- mcv 3y agoICE cars tend to have gears, and can drive very well in lower gears. You don't want to do 30 in 4th gear.
- MezzoDelCammin 3y agoif anyone is interested in a comparison, Paris has had this for some months now. The main idea was to slow / limit traffic through the residential areas (which is most of the city center). There has been an initial wave of skepticism, but things have calmed down somewhat as people seem to have gotten used to it. Personal (anecdotal) experience : -cars now go about as fast as some bikes. Makes it easier for cyclists to merge / left turn through even some of the bussier intersections. -during the bussier parts of the days, speed limit is useless. Nobody is doing 50 on Monday afternoon and it seems that the 30 helps with fluidity / merging. Which (at least in my experience) means that though the traffic jams still exist, they're moving somewhat faster
- badcppdev 3y agoI think it's really funny how humans can't help but use round numbers. 30 kph = 18.64 mph 20 mph = 32.19 kph So safety rules around the world are based on arbitrary length systems. I'm all for lower speed limits for safety but I feel there is still things to be worked out in suburban settings where long arterial(?) roads carry large amounts of traffic in large cities.
- turquoisevar 3y agoIt’s almost as if it’s based on what can be easily gleaned from a speedometer on the dashboard.
- arlort 3y ago2 km/h when you're reducing from 50 to 30 is a negligible difference, and round numbers are easier to keep to on analog/digital speed gauges, and easier to set manually on cruise control systems
- mcv 3y agoIt's not like anyone ever drives exactly that speed anyway. It's all approximations. We don't need 4 digits of precision here.
- Ylpertnodi 3y agoThat 'roundness' can be a pain. E-bikes are generally limited to an arbitrary 25kph (eu) - 5kph slower than a car at 30. Constantly in the way...it's one of two negatives I have regarding e-bikes: too slow for traffic, too fast for pedestrians/ shared paths.
- RektBoy 3y agoWhat do you mean, one system is SI units and other is, ehm how to put it kindly, weird for weird people.
- Adverblessly 3y agoIt is just that Americans are tougher people. That's why during the height of covid, Americans could safely stand 1.829 meters from each other without getting infected while the rest of the world required 6.5616 ft for the same level of safety.
- mjevans 3y agoI'd rather they just finished the job and installed higher speed people mover belts everywhere like in Caves of Steel (Asimov). We could have public transit <> inter area rail / road / airport hubs that allow for higher speed transit between urban centers and the storage of cars / etc outside of the residential areas.
- byyll 3y ago"noise pollution" from cars driving 50 kmh vs 30 kmh isn't much (especially in the Netherlands where most cars are new and/or electric) but scooters on the other hand... I hate those things.
- okokwhatever 3y agoTL;DR: 1. bicycles people want the cities for them 2. cars people want the cities for them. 3. Amsterdam is so f...g great that God decided to impose it to all of us. 4. Lets take back horses to the cities. They are so cute. We can also eat avocado toast while observing them.
- secretsatan 3y agoPedestrians, kids, residents, this isn't just bicycles vs cars. The status quo for years have been cars get all the priority, to the detriment of everyone else, and actually making it a necessity to own a car, why is that a good thing?
- Gigachad 3y agoAmazing change. Really hope we can get something like this in Australia. Would be a huge improvement to public spaces.
- thatgerhard 3y agoSo our cars are getting faster and safer and thee correct way to go is make is slower?! so stupid
- momirlan 3y ago1865 "Red Flag Act": a motorized vehicle, regardless of its purpose, had to be preceded by a man carrying a red flag. History is circular.
- momirlan 3y agoToronto is using potholes, natural way to slow traffic.