There’s a trend towards lower speed limits in cities all over the world, but why is this happening? What is the research behind it? And what is the “correct” speed limit for cities, anyway?
Spoiler it is 30km/h. After that noise and injury risk/severity shoot up. It is the compromise speed.
Also in many european cities you won’t get somewhere faster even if you try, so 30 is definitely a kind of sweet spot.
Most American cities you won’t get there faster either, for all the reasons laid out in the video.
30km/h is about 18 mph. That’s gonna be a hard sell in America.
This would be restricted to city streets. If you want more speed, use the highways or bypass roads that (ideally) aren’t anywhere near residential or city areas.
And the additional speed actually slows things down on congested roads, because you need more traffic lights (among other reasons).
Many Americans drive faster than that in a busy parking lot.
Most of his critiques are of US infrastructure, so it would have been nice to have the conversions in the video:
30 km/h = 18.6 mph
50 km/h = 31.1 mph
60 km/h = 37.3 mph
88.5 km/h = 55 mph
You can roughly remember it as:
- 20 mph = 30 km/h
- 30 mph = 50 km/h
- 60 mph = 100 km/h
but thanks for the precise numbers.
