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London cyclist approaching junction.jpgTfL unveils 20mph speed limit pilot for major roads in London
Plans have been announced today to reduce the speed limit on some of London’s major roads to 20mph in a new trial announced by Transport for London (TfL) as part of an effort to reduce road casualties in the city and encourage active travel.
While a handful of boroughs have introduced 20mph zones on the roads for which they are responsible, until now there has been no corresponding reduction in the speed limit on major roads that form part of the TfL Road Network and which runs through those boroughs.
The trial, which has been broadly welcomed by some road safety campaigners, will run for 18 months and could be rolled out to other major roads in the capital, and builds on similar pilots at Waterloo and in the City of London.
While TfL says the initial locations chosen are the ones with most potential for casualties to be slashed, it has been pointed out that lorries - responsible for half of London cyclist fatalities, despite making up 4 per ceny of the city's traffic - can be lethal to bike riders at much lower speeds.
The first pilot scheme will be launched next month at Commercial Street in Tower Hamlets, as the borough joins Camden, Islington and the City of London in implementing 20mph zones across its entire area.
Hackney is also studying bringing in a borough-wide 20mph zone, and the Commercial Street pilot could be extended across the so-called Shoreditch Triangle and into its area.
Other locations where TfL plans to reduce the speed limit to 20mph, all of them so-called red routes, are:
Upper Street and Holloway Road (between Pentonville Road and Seven Sisters Road);
Westminster Bridge, Stamford Street and Southwark St (between Victoria Embankment and Borough High Street - this trial would also incorporate the previous 20mph trial at Waterloo Roundabout);
Brixton Town Centre (between St Matthews Road and Stockwell Park Walk);
Clapham High Street (between Clapham Park Road and Bedford Road, which forms part of Cycle Superhighway 7);
Earls Court Road and Redcliffe Gardens (between A4 Cromwell Road and Fulham Road);
Kings Cross Road and Farringdon Road (between Pentonville Road and Charterhouse Road, linking up with the previous 20mph trial along Farringdon St and Blackfriars Bridge);
Camden Street (between Camden Road and Crowndale Road).
In 2013 the Mayor’s Task Force recommended that TfL and the boroughs should implement 20mph zones across London “to improve safety, attractiveness and ambience,” and around 25 per cent of the city’s roads now have that as their speed limit.
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: "Lower speeds have the potential to significantly improve road safety while enhancing the environment for walking and cycling.
“As well as actively supporting and funding the installation of 20mph zones and limits on borough roads across London, we have also been looking at the TfL Road Network to see where further 20 mph limits could provide significant benefits.
“These locations will help us to better understand the role that 20 mph limits could play going forward."
Leon Daniels, Managing Director of Surface Transport at TfL, said: “We are working extremely closely with all
Lutfur Rahman, mayor of Tower Hamlets, added: “I am committed to making our streets and roads safer for all users to reduce accidents and injuries. The introduction of a 20mph limit is an effective starting point to achieve this aim.”
The sustainable transport charity Sustrans welcomed news of the pilot schemes, with its London director, Matt Winfield, saying he hoped would encourage more local authorities to implement 20mph zones across the bporough.
He said: “This is a bold move from Transport for London to improve some of London’s busiest streets.
“The advantages of 20mph go beyond the obvious gains in road safety – lowering the speed limit also helps to make our city a more comfortable and pleasant place to be.
“Our research shows that Londoners are keener than anywhere else in the UK to walk or cycle to school if their route was on 20mph streets. On the back of these new trials I hope to see more London boroughs adopt 20mph.”
According to the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), a pedestrian hit by a vehicle at 20mph has a 2.5 per cent chance of being fatally injured, but at 30mph that rises to 25 per cent.
Moreover, according to RoSPA, the lower speed limit also reduces the chance of a collision happening in the first place, since motorists’ reaction times are greater.
But Kate Cairns, who founded the campaign group See Me Save Me after her sister Eilidh was crushed by a lorry while cycling to work in 2009, said that lower speed limits are of little use when large vehicles are concerned.
She told the London Evening Standard: “Reducing the speed of lorries will not prevent deaths, because we know a lorry can kill at 2mph.
"We are learning to adapt our streets for modern living, but in our efforts to reduce deaths we should remember that HGVs are disproportionately represented in cyclist fatalities, and twice as many pedestrians as cyclists are killed by lorries."
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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27 comments
As far as I can see this is aiming at reducing the average speeds on Red Routes. I remember when red routes came in - they were a response to findings that average vehicle speeds in London were "slower than 100 years ago" when the horse-drawn cart was the most common form of transport. So, now 20 years or so later the speeds have creeped back up causing fatalities....great forward thinkers back in the 80's weren't we.
*groan* more half arsed vote winning nonsense that everyone on one side of the fence laps up. I've managed to drive (cars, minibuses & motorbikes) and cycle for 15 years around London, across the UK and other countries without crashing or even so much as bumping anyone. The solution is not lowering speed limits, it IS possible to drive 'fast' and not crash and it should also be common practice that people drive/ride at appropriate speeds. All this does is reduce the impact of, well, impacts, by making the collision speeds lower some of the time - rather than actually doing a proper job of preventing impacts in the first place.
The only proper solution is better road user education (all), much tougher testing in the first place and stiffer penalties for those driving/riding AND walking (leaping across the road in front of cars/bikes without looking etc) dangerously and/or without due care. We have a law to cover it all already - in reality you should be able to do away with speed limits altogether and trust people to drive/ride at appropriate speeds in a safe fashion regardless. Too often I've been a passenger in the car or bus being driven by a nervous wreck completely unsuited to being in charge of a dangerous object, too often you see people pottering along not paying the blindest bit of attention to their surroundings. 20mph limits don't fix this, they are a temporary plaster and judging by the responses to it everyone thinks it's super important to have these fixed limits on how fast you can go - without considering how skilled the users of the vehicles are still. I'd much rather have a load of highly skilled super attentive drivers knocking around comfortable at 30mph than the continued existence of people pottering along at 20mph never checking mirrors, blind spots, distracting themselves with kids/food/drink/radio etc.
It is of course too much to ask for that, and we're too far down the road with too many selfish idiots with licenses so everyone will have to be happy with lazy plaster style fixes instead, that creates a nation of lawbreakers (when a road is clear and empty, people won't adhere to an artificially low limit)
/rant
Wow so much of what you say is so wrong I dont know where to start.
Education? You mean that thing people like you have been banging on about for the last 50 years yet has failed miserably? People push the boundries and get away with what they can, regardless of 'education'.
And no, you cant drive fast in the centre of cities and be safe. Or in many places in fact. 1000 dead and many thousands seriously injured SOLELY BY SPEEDING each year every year is proof of that. Most people can't be trusted...sorry but it's true.
Try and start somewhere based in fact rather than making up figures...
Education is the only reason anyone is driving, so no, it hasn't failed - but it could certainly be improved.
As for your capitalised "SOLELY BY SPEEDING" rubbish...
[from government figures below, first year that cropped up in a very quick google search, am sure there are newer ones available, am also sure they'll follow similar pattern]
Road deaths 2011: 1,754
"Exceeding speed limit" a contributory factor in 14% of fatal accidents, 5% of ALL accidents, so not quite the 1,000 deaths and ONLY factor you were making up.
Add in "too fast for the conditions" (ie, below limit - driver not being skilled enough) and it's 25% of fatal ones.
Compare that with 60% where "driver or rider error" reported.
Where could the biggest reduction in fatalities come from...
Also of note: "For accidents where a pedestrian was injured or killed; Pedestrian failed to look properly was reported in 59% of accidents".
It's hard to see why so much emphasis is placed on numbers on signs instead of simply improving all round ability, when the stats and research clearly show the biggest improvements would be gained by improving skill level, rather than adherence to the law, which would have the knock on effect of more compliance and lower speeds in dangerous areas anyway. But then, so much of what I said is wrong eh.
Your stats are wrong, mine were based on reading that approx 50% of ksi's in this country are due to speeding and nothing else plus around 2000 people die each year on the roads...coming down he last couple of years but still.
Your approach will never, ever work - there is currently a big jump in driving offences across the country as police forces are cut. They know they are breaking the rules but as long as they are certain they will get away with it they will continue to do it,...and to emphasise, they are educated as to the dangers but don't give a flying f**k.
I think this is a very sensible idea. At 20mph i'll be able to use the whole road and not be confined to the gutters anymore.
Why not bring back the man with the red flag?
Seriously I would like to see more data driven decisions about safety instead of just more speed limits that might have unknown consequences, not least motorists focussing on their speedometers instead of the road.
IMHO if looking at your speedo occasionally prevents you driving safely, you shouldn't be driving at all, and failing that, you should certainly be driving a lot slower than an adequately capable driver. I dread to think how many other critical things that you need to be observing (monitoring the road ahead, pavements, and junctions for hazards emerging, road positioning, safe separation from the vehicle in front, mirrors, blind spots, etc) you are failing to look at all the time if you are unable to effectively monitor multiple things at once. Driving shouldn't involve staring at the car in front without engaging your brain. Seriously, you're in charge of a lethal piece of machinery.
Another b.s. announcement from the authorities with no increase in road traffic policing to back it up.
Operation Safeway putting a few pcso at key junctions on select days makes no difference as they neither know the law or enforce it.
On Tuesday this week by spitalfields I witnessed a women on a hybrid bicycle having a row with a motorcyclist who had driven into the ASL box long after the traffic lights turned red, and got between her and the left kerb.
2 pcso standing 5 feet away watching it all, she told them "do your bloody jobs" they look shellshocked. Motorcyclist still rowing with the women other cyclists join in and back the women up.
Lights changed, I moved off quickly, heard a big crash and motorcyclist/motorbike lying in the middle of the junction, cyclists casually riding around him, pcso still standing there frozen.
Can we have some real police on the streets please, police commissioner?
Looking forward to the atricle in 6 months time '20mph speed limits in London largely ignored'
TfL are bring in more average speed cameras as we speak.
"In addition, at four trial locations on the TfL Road Network, TfL will be replacing older cameras with an Average Speed Camera system, similar to the one already in operation along the A13. Average Speed Cameras improve speed compliance between cameras along a more extensive length of road rather than just where the camera is located, helping to further reduce KSIs."
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2014/september/tfl-u...
This is good news, fingers crossed it will do the trick.
My interpretation was that these new 20 limits would be on heavily trafficed roads in central areas (not that anything says that expicitly, just reading between the lines) where average speeds are probably below 20mph already due to the stop-start nature of city driving. I hadn't imaged 20mph limits on roads with free-flowing traffic but that would be great.
If there is no coordination between the application of 20mph limits on main roads and side roads, as the article seems to suggest, and assuming that there is any enforcement, won't we end up with traffic avoiding main roads to drive faster down side roads (and probably often inappropriately)? This doesn't sound good for safety to me.
As for tailgating, you know that that the right reaction to tailgating is to slow down, right? You need to brake more gently to give the idiot behind more time to stop without hitting you, and that means you need to give yourself more stopping room. If everyone actually did this then perhaps the idiots would soon learn to stop tailgaiting.
That's exactly what I do. I've come close to being rammed but I'm not breaking the law.
Me too and I do this while I'm in my car or on one of my motorbikes as well. It's what the IAM advises. You have to slow down carefully as people tailgating are often so inattentive and/or aggressive they'll simply crash into you. If you slow down and then speed up they may close the gap again. The second or third time you do it, they either get the message and back off, or if they're of the psychotic variety they then switch to maniac mode and that's when you're at risk of being a victim of road rage when you next stop at a set of lights. It's often as well just to indicate and let them overtake, which they'll do beeping the horn and shouting and making inappropriate gestures. On the motorbike it can be rather amusing to then pass them, and the vehicles in front of them, at the next set of lights. Again you do have to be careful that you can make a safe distance as a real psychotic is liable to have some sort of twisted revenge approach to life.
expect the car lobby to go batsh*t eye rolling foaming at the mouth insane about this communist plot
Central Bristol has had 20 mph limits for a while now. The local paper has practicaly weekly letters from people complaining that they were obeying the speed limit and some bicycle went haring past them and its not fair. So which is it? Are cyclists too slow or too fast? I do wish motorists would make their minds up
So will we see speeding fines for cyclists then?
Normally you could question if motorists would comply, but in Central London, will any motorists actually make it to 20 mph?
Yes, it's often easy to drive at more than 20 between the traffic lights in Central London on these sort of major roads.
And you get tailgated when complying with the 20mph limits already in force in Islington, Camden and City of London roads.
When conditions are right it's possible to exceed 80mph along stretches of the Chelsea Embankment and Grosvenor Road. Unfortunately speed limits on this section of riverside road won't change.
[[[[[ 20 mph? Er...drivers will continue to "make it" to 40mph in short bursts, when the opportunity presents itself.
No. The law against speeding is specific to motor vehicles. See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/27/section/84
The attitude that leaves cyclists with few non-cyclist friends in any debate. We want others to be policed, yet us to be left alone to race on our commutes (and in Richmond park).
I'm glad I've mostly stopped cycle-commuting in London. And other cyclists, mostly lycra clad, are as much to blame as the lunatic fringe of drivers.
It's not the cyclists causing the road deaths this policy is designed to reduce.
Very few cyclists get much above 20mph in London (aside from the few hills). Even the fastest ones will be being passed by motorbikes on a commute.
Maybe 1% of the total cyclist population exceed 20mph to any degree and even then only for short bursts (often far less than the surrounding traffic 20mph limit or not) but you gave up cycle commuting because of it?
....