Streetsblog is reporting that over the past decade London has been reducing speed limits from 30 mph to 20 mph throughout the city. Today London has over four hundred 20 mph zones. As s result, Londoners have benefited from a 46% decline in fatalities and serious injury within the 20 mph zones during the past decade according to British Medical Journal.
A 2008 map of London's 20mph zones. Image: London Assembly.
The high speed limits within our densest population pockets discourage people from walking or riding a bicycle. Brickell Avenue has a 35 mph speed limit and Biscayne Blvd. has a 30 mph speed limit. However, the design speed of both of these roads often encourages drivers to travel at speeds of 40-45 mph. The first step to making our roads safer for bicyclists and pedestrians would be to reduce speed limits throughout Miami Dade County. The second step would be to introduce self-enforcing traffic calming measures such as: raised junctions, raised crosswalks, chicanes, road humps and roundabouts.
Source: peds.org/2009/01/
So what’s it gonna take for us to step up to 20 mph speed limits? Can you imagine how much more livable our streets would be if speed limits were reduced on our city streets? The results of the London experiment were so glaringly obvious after 4 years that in 2004 the World Health Organization endorsed 20 mph speeds as an essential strategy to save lives.
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