I started campaigning for 20mph/30kmh speed limits after a
cycle trip to Hilden in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2004. There 23% of their in-town
trips were by bicycle after implementing a 30kmh speed limit on almost all of
their roads in 1991. It was cutting the relative speed between motor cars and
cyclists that was seen as the single most important thing that could be done to
make cycling safer and more comfortable. And for a cyclist at 22kmh the
relative speed difference with a 40kmh car is 18kmh which drops to just 8kmh if
the car is doing 30kmh. That means more than twice the distance and time for
avoiding each other.
But there is much more than this which makes 30kmh as a
default for urban and residential streets so important for cycling. It’s the
fact that such a policy benefits pedestrians and drivers as much as cyclists.
It’s a policy which provides universal benefits to the majority of the
population rather than just the minority who cycle. It’s a policy that can
dramatically improve the liveability of our streets with particular benefits
for the young and old who may lack the mental acuity to assess the speed of
vehicles or the physical agility to move quickly.
It is also a policy which questions our values about streets
and how they are public spaces to be shared for the good of the whole community
rather than simply roads for car drivers. It questions the benefits of driving
at 40kmh+ in residential and urban roads and puts them against the wide public
benefits that come from lower speeds with safer walking and cycling, quieter
streets, less polluted streets and a far greater civic amenity.
Of course lower vehicle speeds inevitably requires a change
in behaviour and this can best be done when it provides benefits to the people
whose behaviour we need to change. The driver is the father of the child who
wants to walk or cycle to school, or is the daughter of the elderly person who
wants to keep on walking to the shops regularly. It’s about the driver as a
citizen creating better communities by understanding the benefits that driving
slower brings to those communities.
Most importantly, by focussing on a single and widely
beneficial initiative it brings together cyclists, pedestrians, children, elderly,
disabled and civic amenity groups all in mutual support for behaviour change.
It becomes the catalyst for a fundamental review of how we share our public
spaces for transport.
Of course this does not displace the need for properly
designed cycle facilities, but does provide a foundation for safer and more
equitable transport policies in our communities.
But the universal benefit of 30kmh speed limits and the
desire for change goes far beyond a single country and can be harnessed across
a complete continent. And that is the purpose of the European Citizen’s
Initiative which is looking to gather and show support across the EU. Cyclists
can make a huge difference for not only themselves but the whole of society by
supporting this important initiative.
You can sign up to the initiative at www.20mph4.eu
