Comment by YZF
3 days ago
I have a few km getting out of my city to the highway as part of my commute and then quite a few kms in the city I'm commuting to. This is a pretty typical North American experience (I'm in the Greater Vancouver area). There is no realistic transit option, my 30 minute car drive would be 2 hours on transit each way.
So let's say 10km (might be a bit more) in city traffic. 12 minutes of my commute each way [EDIT: impacted by speed limit, not counting lights, corners etc.] Total 24 minutes. That would turn into 20 minutes each way, total 40 minutes. Huge difference.
Most of this "city" driving is in streets that are plenty wide (sometimes 3 lanes each way with a separation between directions) and have minimal to no pedestrian traffic. On the smaller streets you're probably not doing 50 anyways even if that's the limit since it will feel too fast.
Vancouver has been looking at reducing speed in the city to 30km/hr. It's hard to say if it will reduce traffic deaths (maybe?) but it's going to have some pretty negative economic effects IMO. Some of the smaller streets are 30 anyways. There are probably smarter solutions but city and road planners don't seem to be able to find them.
I'm willing to bet Helsinki is denser and has much better transit.
Yes i don't doubt your estimates for Vancouver. European cities are built very differently (partially because of historical streets being later adapted for motor-vehicles). What i consider city driving, 50km/h or above would be probably be considered suicidal with the amount of merging, turning, and red lights. And the density is higher at that.
Three lanes either way i consider a real motorway. I don't think I've seen a much larger road in Sweden or Finland myself. These roads would clearly not be capped to 30km/h like discussed in this article. (more likely I've seen is 80-90km/h near the city with a lot of merging traffic, and 100-120 outside).
I think the easiest way to visualize what kind of city it is, is to consider that any road with red-light, walkway/bikeway by the side, roundabouts, or without side-barried or trench to be a "city road" and capped at 30km/h. Which is not unreasonable, and unlikely to affect commute by much, as you generally navigate to the nearest larger road, travel by that, and then merge back into the city. (and this is most roads in the city by distance or area)
as a European looking at an american city, they feel like playing sim-city but not finding the "small road" option. And slapping red-lights, stores, and crossings om roads that no human should be near.
Here is Marine Drive in Vancouver: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ThnKn7PmD8sKSnNs5
Speed limit 50km/h ... It has lights and intersections. Almost no pedestrians.
Vancouver has many wide multi-lane streets. Some in denser areas with more pedestrian traffic some less. It has almost no real highways going to the city.
Agreed that it makes no sense to restrict that kind of road to 30km/h, but to be fair most cities that have moved to 30km/h would have excluded that road. Even Amsterdam left the main throughfares at 50km/h: https://www.amsterdam.nl/30-km-u-in-de-stad/
yes. I feel like European cities makes greater distinction between "large road" and "small road". A road this wide and open would have barriers, trenches, and road-exit lanes rather a red light.
I took a jump around with google maps for an example; https://maps.app.goo.gl/1qgPoM35RCjxLR2d9. This is the E12 road through Helsinki. It would be considered a major road that connects Helsinki to the rest of the country. Barriers, trenches, an underpass for pedestrians to cross to the other side, overpasses and merge lanes to leave the road or turn around. This road is capped to 80km/h since its near to the city, but would likely rise to 100-120km/h when there are less mergers.
Leaving this "major road" quickly gets you into more normal larger city roads like this; https://maps.app.goo.gl/dP5FiMAPcXn3xMiH7. Driving 50km/h on this kind of road can be suicidal in sections (seems like 40km/h is the speed limit on the google maps images), and most your time is spent navigating a-lot of other cars, red-lights and turns.
1 more turn, and you're in the 80% of city roads; https://maps.app.goo.gl/HELXkV9xjmLyf5Q77. Drive 50 at your own peril (that's 2 way road with parked cars, and very typical)
When the article discusses "30km/h for city roads", this is closer to what you should visualize compared to the Vancouver road. The style of road you show would be a weird limbo between too large to be safe for pedestrians, but still used as a minor road for some reason.
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