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The 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

by mcv 3y ago

The 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 ago
Seattle 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 ago
Does 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 ago
  There 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' ?
- meheleventyone 3y ago
  Presumably whilst 5000 sounds like a lot it probably isn’t? Each road impacted needing multiple signs and all that.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- mcv 3y ago
  5000 signs at once is not slowly, but this isn't new. It wouldn't surprise me if Amsterdam already had 5000 30 km signs before this (I'm trying to find data but I can't find anything). The street I live in is a 30 km zone, as are most other residential streets in the city. They're not starting something new; they're expanding it even further. Probably because of the experience they have acquired with slower speeds over the past decades. When I was a kid (in the 1980s), 50 km/h was standard everywhere in cities and towns. Around that time, protesters started demanding lower speeds for cars with the slogan "50 is the veel" (50 is too much). Ever since, they've been reducing speeds in more and more places (except motorways, which increased from 100 to 120 and then 130).
  - the-dude 3y ago
    It wouldn't surprise me either about the 5000 signs already there. Except you are presenting this new 5000 signs as something incremental while at the same time arguing it might be a doubling.
    - mcv 3y ago
      These 5000 signs are absolutely a big move, no doubt about that. I'm just saying it's not something that comes out of nowhere, but it's part of a change that's been going on for decades. They're probably confident enough about the results that it's time to pick up the pace and do more at once. And consistency is also important. Having some streets 30 km/h while similar streets in other places are 50 km/h can be confusing.
meheleventyone 3y ago
They’re doing this in Reykjavik as well which is great, although enforcement is poor so on the larger roads that are now 50km/h everyone is still driving 70km/h as they were when the limit was 60km/h. Going back to the UK where a twisty road through my parents village with tiny pavements was 30mph was pretty shocking with how much more dangerous that felt.
- sebazzz 3y ago
  > They’re doing this in Reykjavik as well which is great, although enforcement is poor so on the larger roads that are now 50km/h everyone is still driving 70km/h as they were when the limit was 60km/h. The car speedometer is conservative so it is several kilometers behind, and the speed camera allows in the Netherlands about 3 kilometers margin. In practice this means you can drive about 107km/h indicated car speed on a 100km road. That said, lowering the speed on a road should not only be achieved with different signs but also with traffic calming - so redesigning the layout of the road.
- macleginn 3y ago
  As an aside, speed-limit enforcement in Iceland outside of Reykjavik is almost nonexistent. On the ring road, which goes around the whole country and has a strict but reasonable limit of 90 km/h (few cars but tons of bumps and sudden turns + a lot of low visibility due to bad weather), there are no more than 10 speed cameras, so everybody is driving at their own discretion.
  - xenospn 3y ago
    Speed traps don’t make people drive slower. They’re just another way for the municipality to generate revenue.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      The stats I've seen say that they do both, to varying degrees depending on the quality of enforcement. If you're absolutely certain to get a ticket for speeding, and you are somewhere that will take your licence away for breaking road traffic rules too often, you're not going to do it again — not twice more, anyway. Back in the UK, there was someone I knew who absolutely loved to go fast. He had a story about red-lining his (Lexus?) across northern France to get back to the ferry before it's last crossing for the day (and how he wasn't caught in France, but almost immediately hit a speed trap when back in the UK). I was in his car for a two-vehicle "convoy" from a restaurant to an indoor race track for a mutual friend's stag do, where the other car was driven by someone who followed the speed limit, and when I asked this guy why he was doing 97 mph on the A14, his answer was "if I was going faster I might have to waste time in court proving that's not dangerous driving" rather than to slow down. But that guy, when he was on the maximum number of points on his licence before they'd take it away, was very careful to… not get caught.
Vinnl 3y ago
IMO it's not just about reducing the severity of accidents, but also what the experience of sharing the road with cars is like. It's way less comfortable cycling somewhere when cars are passing by at 50 km/h, whereas 30 is way more doable.
wappieslurkz 3y ago
Thanks for adding this. It's going the right direction. Personally I'm baffled the speed limit on the (for instance) Rozengracht - Raadhuisstraat is still 50km/h. Crazy.

by mcv 3y ago

lamontcg 3y ago

Seattle 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 ago

Does 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 ago
There 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' ?

meheleventyone 3y ago
Presumably whilst 5000 sounds like a lot it probably isn’t? Each road impacted needing multiple signs and all that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mcv 3y ago
5000 signs at once is not slowly, but this isn't new. It wouldn't surprise me if Amsterdam already had 5000 30 km signs before this (I'm trying to find data but I can't find anything). The street I live in is a 30 km zone, as are most other residential streets in the city. They're not starting something new; they're expanding it even further. Probably because of the experience they have acquired with slower speeds over the past decades. When I was a kid (in the 1980s), 50 km/h was standard everywhere in cities and towns. Around that time, protesters started demanding lower speeds for cars with the slogan "50 is the veel" (50 is too much). Ever since, they've been reducing speeds in more and more places (except motorways, which increased from 100 to 120 and then 130).
- the-dude 3y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me either about the 5000 signs already there. Except you are presenting this new 5000 signs as something incremental while at the same time arguing it might be a doubling.
  - mcv 3y ago
    These 5000 signs are absolutely a big move, no doubt about that. I'm just saying it's not something that comes out of nowhere, but it's part of a change that's been going on for decades. They're probably confident enough about the results that it's time to pick up the pace and do more at once. And consistency is also important. Having some streets 30 km/h while similar streets in other places are 50 km/h can be confusing.

meheleventyone 3y ago

They’re doing this in Reykjavik as well which is great, although enforcement is poor so on the larger roads that are now 50km/h everyone is still driving 70km/h as they were when the limit was 60km/h. Going back to the UK where a twisty road through my parents village with tiny pavements was 30mph was pretty shocking with how much more dangerous that felt.

sebazzz 3y ago
> They’re doing this in Reykjavik as well which is great, although enforcement is poor so on the larger roads that are now 50km/h everyone is still driving 70km/h as they were when the limit was 60km/h. The car speedometer is conservative so it is several kilometers behind, and the speed camera allows in the Netherlands about 3 kilometers margin. In practice this means you can drive about 107km/h indicated car speed on a 100km road. That said, lowering the speed on a road should not only be achieved with different signs but also with traffic calming - so redesigning the layout of the road.
macleginn 3y ago
As an aside, speed-limit enforcement in Iceland outside of Reykjavik is almost nonexistent. On the ring road, which goes around the whole country and has a strict but reasonable limit of 90 km/h (few cars but tons of bumps and sudden turns + a lot of low visibility due to bad weather), there are no more than 10 speed cameras, so everybody is driving at their own discretion.
- xenospn 3y ago
  Speed traps don’t make people drive slower. They’re just another way for the municipality to generate revenue.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    The stats I've seen say that they do both, to varying degrees depending on the quality of enforcement. If you're absolutely certain to get a ticket for speeding, and you are somewhere that will take your licence away for breaking road traffic rules too often, you're not going to do it again — not twice more, anyway. Back in the UK, there was someone I knew who absolutely loved to go fast. He had a story about red-lining his (Lexus?) across northern France to get back to the ferry before it's last crossing for the day (and how he wasn't caught in France, but almost immediately hit a speed trap when back in the UK). I was in his car for a two-vehicle "convoy" from a restaurant to an indoor race track for a mutual friend's stag do, where the other car was driven by someone who followed the speed limit, and when I asked this guy why he was doing 97 mph on the A14, his answer was "if I was going faster I might have to waste time in court proving that's not dangerous driving" rather than to slow down. But that guy, when he was on the maximum number of points on his licence before they'd take it away, was very careful to… not get caught.

Vinnl 3y ago

IMO it's not just about reducing the severity of accidents, but also what the experience of sharing the road with cars is like. It's way less comfortable cycling somewhere when cars are passing by at 50 km/h, whereas 30 is way more doable.

wappieslurkz 3y ago

Thanks for adding this. It's going the right direction. Personally I'm baffled the speed limit on the (for instance) Rozengracht - Raadhuisstraat is still 50km/h. Crazy.