“Safer, less polluted, easier to cross”: Campaigners call for blanket 20mph speeds divides city residents; Tour de France Femmes Ventoux preview + more on the live blog
20mph blanket across Bath
When the media reports a 20mph ‘blanket ban’ it’s often misleading, presuming that even the A-roads are now forced to limit you to a more pedestrian-friendly pace. That’s never been quite true, although for campaigners within the city limits of Bath, that’s the goal.
We met campaigner Guy Hodgson at our last ride out, and he last month launched a petition to make Bath a fully 20mph city, highlighting the remaining 8 miles of city roads that have a 30 limit, and their proximity to various schools and student halls.
> Reducing speed limits to 20mph protects cyclists and doesn’t delay traffic, new research finds
He estimates the cost of creating a ‘blanket’ 20mph limit would be around £15,000 and that the policy represents, excellent value for money. 30mph where people live, work and play is akin to indoor smoking. When it is no more, we will look back and wonder how we tolerated such a harmful situation for so long.”
Transport academic Pete Dyson, supports the proposals, noting, “Bath has been fortunate to maintain a largely traditional street design and there is just one mile of dual carriageway. We have already seen 20mph works well for people on places like London Road, which is now safer, less polluted and easier to cross. We need to roll out those benefits to all communities.”
Hodgson also has the tentative support of the city’s council’s cabinet member for sustainable transport delivery. Lucy Hodge said, “We are committed to putting in 20mph speed limits where they are requested by residents, recognising how much safer they make our streets for school children.”
The challenge, however, might be convincing residents to request it. Since launching the petition he has attracted, at the time of writing, 321 signatures. Had he not launched the campaign during the Tour de France we may have given it a little more attention – Bath is after all home to road.cc HQ.
But a write-up of his efforts by the Local Democracy Reporter on Somerset Live seemed to quickly attract hundreds of critical comments.
“258 people signed the petition. If there was a petition to not have 20 mph limits, I am sure that would garner much more support.”
“And the war against the car gathers pace…”
“How about this for an idea: instead of listening to the ‘campaigners’, who are often very vocal, but only represent a small minority of the community, invite every resident of Bath to vote on whether they actually want this. I suspect that the result would end this pointless little drama pretty quickly.”
“I’m sure I’m not the first to say that if the traffic seldom moves faster than 20 you don’t need a mandatory 20 limit. Unless, of course, you want to get lots of lovely income from speeding fines.”
Some residents were also worried about the possible increase in emissions from cars driving slower for longer, although those studies tend to test cars driven on ‘steady-state’ rolling roads and not in the open when cars repeatedly accelerate and decelerate.
Altogether, it seems like this campaign might be facing an uphill battle to win over residents’ approval…
Penny Farthing Hill Climb alert!
People of Eastbourne and the surrounding vicinity! If you have Sunday plans reschedule them, unless of course you plan on attending the Penny Farthing hill climb world championships…
View this post on Instagram
4.7km, a whopping 150m of elevation gain. Be there or be square. Sadly our VecchioJo, he of 59 Flandrien bergs fame, failed to snap up an entry this time.
View this post on Instagram
Slightly insane rear bike light spotted
View this post on Instagram
You wonder what went through Specialized’s heads to come up with this. Thankfully Mat will have a more thorough explanation in our Tech of the Week.
Bike shop-turned detective agency
This story has been a little all-consuming for Ryan at times over the past couple of weeks, which is all the more remarkable considering he’s been chasing it whilst at the biggest bike races in the world. Kudos to him…
Help us to bring you the best cycling content
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £2.49. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
1 Comments
Read more...
Read more...
Read more...
Latest Comments
"...when cars repeatedly accelerate and decelerate." Come on Callum. Do better. I once had a "chat" (/argument) about roads in my area going from 30mph to 20mph on residential roads. The other party, who only drives, was against it. I challenged him to work out the difference in journey time it would mean for him, given he usual travels during rush hour anyway. He didn't do so. Not heard any complaints about it since implementation... I need to check if he has noticed a difference and if so can prove it and complained to the council.
@andystow I'm only guessing but I'm assuming they can't monitor every courier bringing bicycles into New York as if they were a customs operation, so maybe they will run a "secret shopper" operation where they will attempt to order from these online retailers and see if they agree to shipping to NY.
Leading to us (the general tax paying population) paying up for their mistakes. £6,000 = 3 households annual council tax bills.
@belugabob That would make cents. At the end of the day, road rules (highway code, red lights etc) only came in because of KSIs due to drivers of motor vehicles... 100 years ago? As the government has said, they have no intention of making more onerous rules/requirements for pedal-cyclists given the increase in safety would be negligible.
Institutional incompetence leading here to institutional anti-cyclist bias.
About time. Doh! High speed e-bikes are a menace. They should be banned / or should be road registered only and banned from bike tracks and pavements.
“The Chopper was CR….” @SecretSam I think that is unfair. It was the best of British just like the Mini Metro, the Austin Allegro, and the Teasmade.
@mdavidford But you can only bind them in the darkness - which ruins your aero because of the headlamp.
Arguably that was a failure to adapt - to a change of regime.
If I'm reading this correctly, the clamp down is because of the number of fatalities and not because of the illegal nature of the bikes, per se. Does this mean that an absence of fatalities would have lead to the clamp down not happening? Or, more pertinently, what level of clamp down is being applied because of the fatality rate involving motor vehicles?
1 thought on ““Safer, less polluted, easier to cross”: Campaigners call for blanket 20mph speeds divides city residents; Tour de France Femmes Ventoux preview + more on the live blog”
“…when cars repeatedly accelerate and decelerate.”
Come on Callum.
Do better.
I once had a “chat” (/argument) about roads in my area going from 30mph to 20mph on residential roads.
The other party, who only drives, was against it.
I challenged him to work out the difference in journey time it would mean for him, given he usual travels during rush hour anyway.
He didn’t do so.
Not heard any complaints about it since implementation…
I need to check if he has noticed a difference and if so can prove it and complained to the council.