Richmond 20mph
Discussion
Funk said:
2gins said:
I sat in on the first of 6 or so public consultations at York House this evening. Some observations:
1. About 100 attended. No signage for the event, I wasn't entirely sure where to go;
2. Room was about 70/30 in favour of the new limits with applause for those speaking in favour, less so for those making arguments against. Mix of old and young, I'd say average age late 40s;
3. 20 mph was buried in among other local issues, the reason given by the chairman was that it was always a mixed agenda evening but there had clearly been a 'misunderstanding' over the format of the evening;
4. Those speaking against had their concerns answered but then swiftly moved on to the next question. One guy at the start commenced what seemed like a considered piece on the various reasons why the scheme was a poor idea, but was closed down by the chair pretty sharpish;
One lady asked what confidence we could have that the council would abide by the outcome of the consultation, as it felt like a done deal already. The answer given (Cllr Ehmann, Lib Dem and Cllr for transport etc) was that the council was elected on a manifesto including 20 mph and that is the mandate, so in fact they don't have to consult at all. At which point I zoned out a bit.
It seems absurd that it's been proven not to work and will be costly to roll out yet they still press ahead. No doubt to be seen to be 'doing something'.1. About 100 attended. No signage for the event, I wasn't entirely sure where to go;
2. Room was about 70/30 in favour of the new limits with applause for those speaking in favour, less so for those making arguments against. Mix of old and young, I'd say average age late 40s;
3. 20 mph was buried in among other local issues, the reason given by the chairman was that it was always a mixed agenda evening but there had clearly been a 'misunderstanding' over the format of the evening;
4. Those speaking against had their concerns answered but then swiftly moved on to the next question. One guy at the start commenced what seemed like a considered piece on the various reasons why the scheme was a poor idea, but was closed down by the chair pretty sharpish;
One lady asked what confidence we could have that the council would abide by the outcome of the consultation, as it felt like a done deal already. The answer given (Cllr Ehmann, Lib Dem and Cllr for transport etc) was that the council was elected on a manifesto including 20 mph and that is the mandate, so in fact they don't have to consult at all. At which point I zoned out a bit.
One thing I've never really understood; people who live in expensive areas must earn a lot, therefore they're probably of above average intelligence, qualifications etc. So how do massive swathes of the London region end up with idiot MPs at the helm? The turkeys seem to be voting for Christmas.
I emailed the 20mph e mail at Richmond council with some questions around why they thought it would work given that it had failed elsewhere, how much it would cost and if the results were indeed the same as elsewhere would they revert. Naturally after 13 days I got an e mail back which assiduosly ignored my questions and merely stated that across London road speeds have dropped where 20mph zones have been introduced and they extrapolated this would save X number of lives. (This was after the initial email bounced back as the address hadn't been set up - typical Richmond Council inefficiency - one could almost expect they didn't want any correspondence!)
This was all b
ks of course. If you are talking about central London then the massive increase in permanent cycle superhighways and the reduction of lanes for cars as well as a gazillion uber cabs will naturally reduce speed - the comparison isn't a valid apples to apples one - plus if you have to drive through places like Hackney and Southwark it is full of traffic calming measures so again not a valid comparison.@Funk. The age old saying was that people sent the idiot of the family into the church. Now they go into politics or work for local government whilst normal people get jobs that create value.
Hounslow is another borough driven by anti car dogma. I have a friend who works shifts at Sky, when they built the new office building they were allowed only 200 spaces for 800 staff. This they believed would encourage more cycling / use of public transport. The fact that no trains run at night and most people drive in from further afield was merely an inconvenience to the lentil munching muppets
slk 32 said:
Thanks 2gins for the feedback.. very much as I thought it would be.
I emailed the 20mph e mail at Richmond council with some questions around why they thought it would work given that it had failed elsewhere, how much it would cost and if the results were indeed the same as elsewhere would they revert. Naturally after 13 days I got an e mail back which assiduosly ignored my questions and merely stated that across London road speeds have dropped where 20mph zones have been introduced and they extrapolated this would save X number of lives. (This was after the initial email bounced back as the address hadn't been set up - typical Richmond Council inefficiency - one could almost expect they didn't want any correspondence!)
This was all bks of course. If you are talking about central London then the massive increase in permanent cycle superhighways and the reduction of lanes for cars as well as a gazillion uber cabs will naturally reduce speed - the comparison isn't a valid apples to apples one - plus if you have to drive through places like Hackney and Southwark it is full of traffic calming measures so again not a valid comparison.
@Funk. The age old saying was that people sent the idiot of the family into the church. Now they go into politics or work for local government whilst normal people get jobs that create value.
Hounslow is another borough driven by anti car dogma. I have a friend who works shifts at Sky, when they built the new office building they were allowed only 200 spaces for 800 staff. This they believed would encourage more cycling / use of public transport. The fact that no trains run at night and most people drive in from further afield was merely an inconvenience to the lentil munching muppets
Interesting and typical council "do as we say not as we do" attitude.I emailed the 20mph e mail at Richmond council with some questions around why they thought it would work given that it had failed elsewhere, how much it would cost and if the results were indeed the same as elsewhere would they revert. Naturally after 13 days I got an e mail back which assiduosly ignored my questions and merely stated that across London road speeds have dropped where 20mph zones have been introduced and they extrapolated this would save X number of lives. (This was after the initial email bounced back as the address hadn't been set up - typical Richmond Council inefficiency - one could almost expect they didn't want any correspondence!)
This was all b
ks of course. If you are talking about central London then the massive increase in permanent cycle superhighways and the reduction of lanes for cars as well as a gazillion uber cabs will naturally reduce speed - the comparison isn't a valid apples to apples one - plus if you have to drive through places like Hackney and Southwark it is full of traffic calming measures so again not a valid comparison.@Funk. The age old saying was that people sent the idiot of the family into the church. Now they go into politics or work for local government whilst normal people get jobs that create value.
Hounslow is another borough driven by anti car dogma. I have a friend who works shifts at Sky, when they built the new office building they were allowed only 200 spaces for 800 staff. This they believed would encourage more cycling / use of public transport. The fact that no trains run at night and most people drive in from further afield was merely an inconvenience to the lentil munching muppets
As for SKY they should have just #uck you and re-located out of the area.
No wonder on street parking is such a shambles.
A lot of the wealthy Londonistas are simply champagne charlies with a high focus on what everyone else should do as long as it doesn't apply to them.
They won't worry about car speeds and traffic calming because Rupert catches the train to the city, darling, and Jocanda leaves early on a Friday with the little beasts for their coastal property..
...leaving the rest of the poor sods to live with the decisions they've supported.
They won't worry about car speeds and traffic calming because Rupert catches the train to the city, darling, and Jocanda leaves early on a Friday with the little beasts for their coastal property..
...leaving the rest of the poor sods to live with the decisions they've supported.
I've been sad enough to have a bit more of a look at the accident figures over the last couple of weeks, since the Cllrs stated they could debunk the Portsmouth and Bath results as they're not London.
Take a close look at the DfT data download table called RAS30043 which I think is casualty rate set out by local borough and road user type for the whole country, including all the London boroughs. Then take a look at the count points data, i.e. vehicle miles in each borough. You can normalize the KSI and total casualty numbers for cyclists by dividing by the miles covered by cycle (i.e. cyclist casualties per 1000 miles cycled), then plot on year. Do this for the various boroughs with blanket 20 limits and see what it looks like. In most cases you see the normalized casualty rate increasing despite 20s being brought in. Interestingly, even where cycle casualties fall, there is still a general rise in casualties. Pedestrians are almost universally flat (no pun), so the rise in casualties must be amongst motorists. Why? Perhaps this is an increase in collisions due to tailgating and desperate overtakes (speculation).
In 2017 for some reason the casualty rate rocketed across the board, I haven't started looking into why this might be yet. Any ideas there gratefully received.
Take a close look at the DfT data download table called RAS30043 which I think is casualty rate set out by local borough and road user type for the whole country, including all the London boroughs. Then take a look at the count points data, i.e. vehicle miles in each borough. You can normalize the KSI and total casualty numbers for cyclists by dividing by the miles covered by cycle (i.e. cyclist casualties per 1000 miles cycled), then plot on year. Do this for the various boroughs with blanket 20 limits and see what it looks like. In most cases you see the normalized casualty rate increasing despite 20s being brought in. Interestingly, even where cycle casualties fall, there is still a general rise in casualties. Pedestrians are almost universally flat (no pun), so the rise in casualties must be amongst motorists. Why? Perhaps this is an increase in collisions due to tailgating and desperate overtakes (speculation).
In 2017 for some reason the casualty rate rocketed across the board, I haven't started looking into why this might be yet. Any ideas there gratefully received.
2gins said:
... so the rise in casualties must be amongst motorists. Why? Perhaps this is an increase in collisions due to tailgating and desperate overtakes (speculation).
In 2017 for some reason the casualty rate rocketed across the board, I haven't started looking into why this might be yet. Any ideas there gratefully received.
I would imagine that it's due to people being glued to their speedos rather than looking where they're goingIn 2017 for some reason the casualty rate rocketed across the board, I haven't started looking into why this might be yet. Any ideas there gratefully received.
morebeanz said:
A lot of the wealthy Londonistas are simply champagne charlies with a high focus on what everyone else should do as long as it doesn't apply to them.
They won't worry about car speeds and traffic calming because Rupert catches the train to the city, darling, and Jocanda leaves early on a Friday with the little beasts for their coastal property..
...leaving the rest of the poor sods to live with the decisions they've supported.
The problem is it's driven by dogma. The council want's to reduce accidents ( a laudable aim) and thinks a blanket 20mph limit will achieve this despite the fact that where it has already been done (Portsmouth, Bath, Manchester etc) it has actually increased casualties.They won't worry about car speeds and traffic calming because Rupert catches the train to the city, darling, and Jocanda leaves early on a Friday with the little beasts for their coastal property..
...leaving the rest of the poor sods to live with the decisions they've supported.
Here are those plots.
First I wondered if the amount of traffic has any bearing, so this is a plot of the cycle casualty risk (casualties per mile cycled) against miles covered by all motor vehicles (cars, motorbikes, vans, buses, HGV etc). All borough, all years 2013-2017.
R^2 couldn't be much lower, so safe to conclude no trend. Seems that cycling casualty risk isn't related to traffic volumes, or the spread of traffic volume isn't big enough to show a trend. It spans an order of magnitude which seems enough to me, but I'm not a traffic statistician, just a lowly engineer.
The following plots are of KSI and all casualties across various modes, normalized for miles covered by that mode. There isn't any data that I can find for pedestrian mileage, so on the assumption that pedestrians are injured by collisions with vehicles (including cycles) and not with other pedestrians, I've normalized that data against vehicle miles instead.
Camden - went 20 mph borough wide in 2014. I need to pull out more 'before' points to build a clearer picture of the underlying trend but it looks at first glance like 20 was successful in year 1, then it has been either up or flat.
Islington - went 20 mph in 2013. Again, I need to pull more 'before' points in. 2012-2013 would be interesting to see but after full introduction, KSI and total casualties flat across the board.
Lambeth - 20 mph in April 2016. I'm cautious about this data as there seems to be a big increase in 2017 in every borough that might be skewing the data. However on the basis if 3 quarters at 20 mph in 2016, there is a distinct rise in that year from 2015.
Lewisham - 20 mph in September 2016. Doesn't appear to have had any effect at all on prevailing rates except for cycles, but this might also be because of uptake on a new cycle route (quietway 1) into Waterloo on quieter roads. I don't know on that one.
Southwark - 20 mph in 2015. Pretty much flat, minimal improvement over the underlying trend for cycles.
Greenwich - this is a funny one as it hasn't gone 20 in one go but has had extensive areas rolled out year on year from about 2015 onwards. Nevertheless, throughout the roll out the pedestrian risk rates are flat, motors are up, and cycles are all over the place - not a conclusive picture. It appears 20 mph isn't the only game in town.
Hackney - 20 mph in 2015. It's been up, up and up ever since and the cycle figures, while dropping, show a weakening of the improvement that was evident beforehand.
Haringey - 20 mph in 2015. They evidently liked Hackney's roll out so much they thought they'd try to emulate and build on their results!
Said I'd been a bit of a sad bd. 
The councils are being driven by city hall and Khan, who are putting up the cash for these schemes. The financial case is based on a cost of X for minor accidents and Y for fatals, so any reduction multiplied up will deliver a return on investment eventually, which is a hard case to argue against. It all appears to hinge on whether or not there is a real reduction in casualties. I haven't massaged the data much to bring these results out. It looks real enough to me.
But ultimately the questions have to be 1. If the consultation comes out against, will you honour it, and 2. If this is brought in and casualties go up, who is accountable and who pays.
First I wondered if the amount of traffic has any bearing, so this is a plot of the cycle casualty risk (casualties per mile cycled) against miles covered by all motor vehicles (cars, motorbikes, vans, buses, HGV etc). All borough, all years 2013-2017.
R^2 couldn't be much lower, so safe to conclude no trend. Seems that cycling casualty risk isn't related to traffic volumes, or the spread of traffic volume isn't big enough to show a trend. It spans an order of magnitude which seems enough to me, but I'm not a traffic statistician, just a lowly engineer.
The following plots are of KSI and all casualties across various modes, normalized for miles covered by that mode. There isn't any data that I can find for pedestrian mileage, so on the assumption that pedestrians are injured by collisions with vehicles (including cycles) and not with other pedestrians, I've normalized that data against vehicle miles instead.
Camden - went 20 mph borough wide in 2014. I need to pull out more 'before' points to build a clearer picture of the underlying trend but it looks at first glance like 20 was successful in year 1, then it has been either up or flat.
Islington - went 20 mph in 2013. Again, I need to pull more 'before' points in. 2012-2013 would be interesting to see but after full introduction, KSI and total casualties flat across the board.
Lambeth - 20 mph in April 2016. I'm cautious about this data as there seems to be a big increase in 2017 in every borough that might be skewing the data. However on the basis if 3 quarters at 20 mph in 2016, there is a distinct rise in that year from 2015.
Lewisham - 20 mph in September 2016. Doesn't appear to have had any effect at all on prevailing rates except for cycles, but this might also be because of uptake on a new cycle route (quietway 1) into Waterloo on quieter roads. I don't know on that one.
Southwark - 20 mph in 2015. Pretty much flat, minimal improvement over the underlying trend for cycles.
Greenwich - this is a funny one as it hasn't gone 20 in one go but has had extensive areas rolled out year on year from about 2015 onwards. Nevertheless, throughout the roll out the pedestrian risk rates are flat, motors are up, and cycles are all over the place - not a conclusive picture. It appears 20 mph isn't the only game in town.
Hackney - 20 mph in 2015. It's been up, up and up ever since and the cycle figures, while dropping, show a weakening of the improvement that was evident beforehand.
Haringey - 20 mph in 2015. They evidently liked Hackney's roll out so much they thought they'd try to emulate and build on their results!
Said I'd been a bit of a sad b
d. The councils are being driven by city hall and Khan, who are putting up the cash for these schemes. The financial case is based on a cost of X for minor accidents and Y for fatals, so any reduction multiplied up will deliver a return on investment eventually, which is a hard case to argue against. It all appears to hinge on whether or not there is a real reduction in casualties. I haven't massaged the data much to bring these results out. It looks real enough to me.
But ultimately the questions have to be 1. If the consultation comes out against, will you honour it, and 2. If this is brought in and casualties go up, who is accountable and who pays.
Edited for spellings by 2gins on Tuesday 23 October 16:30
Edited by 2gins on Tuesday 23 October 16:35
The Met introduced online self reporting for accidents in 2017, which is given as the reason for the spikes in 2017 data in this TFL publication.
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2...
2017 data should be treated with caution. It is said in the above that self reporting led to 20% extra reporting of all casualties. However I don't think this applies to KSI data because these cases would presumably all have gone through the emergency services and been accurately recorded in the first place.
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2...
2017 data should be treated with caution. It is said in the above that self reporting led to 20% extra reporting of all casualties. However I don't think this applies to KSI data because these cases would presumably all have gone through the emergency services and been accurately recorded in the first place.
50% actually but the council wonks believe this will be offset by savings in idling time at junctions, because the queues will be shorter. There is a degree of trade off inevitably but the environmental claims have never been proved either way as far as I can tell. In any event, most of the Borough lies underneath final approach into LHR so the devil will be in separating all the CO2 from traffic from that from aviation.
If other PistonHeaders think the inclusion of major A & B roads in the proposed 20mph 'blanket' speed limit in Richmond is daft and would like to do something about it then I would urge them to sign the burgeoning petition at Change.Org - here is the easy link https://chn.ge/2JdEPqD and it takes seconds to sign the petition.
Thanks guys!
Thanks guys!
Wizward said:
If other PistonHeaders think the inclusion of major A & B roads in the proposed 20mph 'blanket' speed limit in Richmond is daft and would like to do something about it then I would urge them to sign the burgeoning petition at Change.Org - here is the easy link https://chn.ge/2JdEPqD and it takes seconds to sign the petition.
Thanks guys!
I'm in two minds.Thanks guys!
Haringey have retained their limits and spent an extra £500k on traffic calming. Lewisham are now consulting on introducing traffic calming measures. They say humps are too expensive and either ineffective (cushions) or impede buses and emergency vehicles (full width humps), their preferred option is borough wide average speed cameras. I'm yet to look at the other councils. So, be careful what you wish for.
Cllr Ehmann also said that this is the trajectory (20 mph by default in urban areas) and the motivation for going the whole hog in one go is that it will be cheaper in the long run. I think it's all or nothing. We do 20 mph in full and live with the consequences, which are becoming clearer as each passing year adds more weight to the statistics; or we retain the current sensible and proportionate case of adding targeted 20 zones with calming measures where there is a specific problem.
I stand to be corrected but I was recently told by someone in the know that 20mph limits are unenforceable.
Central Govt. allows Councils to put them into place providing they are NOT enforced.
In order to have enforceable limits requires an Act of Parliament.
It answered the question I posed to him as to why you never see speed traps etc. on 20mph roads.
Certainly around Reading these limits seem to be widely ignored so it seems to be a total waste of money RBC paying for signage.
Don't get me wrong I think urban speed limits are a good thing given the mix of road traffic, cyclists, pedestrians etc. but surely there's a better way than current - more 30mph cameras on urban roads?
Cheers, Pewe
Central Govt. allows Councils to put them into place providing they are NOT enforced.
In order to have enforceable limits requires an Act of Parliament.
It answered the question I posed to him as to why you never see speed traps etc. on 20mph roads.
Certainly around Reading these limits seem to be widely ignored so it seems to be a total waste of money RBC paying for signage.
Don't get me wrong I think urban speed limits are a good thing given the mix of road traffic, cyclists, pedestrians etc. but surely there's a better way than current - more 30mph cameras on urban roads?
Cheers, Pewe
I don’t live in the area so can’t help much but here’s some great ideas for objecting:-
http://20spointless.org.uk
http://20spointless.org.uk
Bit late on this one but here is a brief synopsis of the tone and discussion at the Richmond meeting a couple of weeks back.
Meeting was generally better organised than the first one at York House and no-one was told to stop talking now and sit down. Progress!
Councillor gave a presentation about the scheme up front containing some facts and figures, the usual RosPA / Brake stuff about e.g. survival rates at 20 vs 30, 40 and results from other cities - including Bath.
About 100 or so again, average age probably not much shy of 50. Room was sceptical but not hostile.
Data presented by the Council was challenged by a number of people including 1 statistician (not me) - e.g. statistics on KSI included those that took place in Richmond Park - 20 mph
Scheme will cover existing 40mph roads (Kingston bridge to Hampton Ct)
2 cyclists put up arguments against 20mph and were politely disregarded. One of these was me. I'd rather traffic minimised the TED and got past me, frankly. One lady was typing minutes for a local cycling club, she seemed to think the idea of wanting cars to pass seemed a bit mad. Says it all really.
One guy made a point that as we'll all be doing 20 does this mean the speed bumps will be removed.... er, no.
Some alternative ideas were put to the council including better enforcement of the standard we already have. The councillor said this was for the Met, essentially, 'yes but not out problem' - bit of a cop out (no pun)
No statement on what they will do when they have a compliance problem in a years' time - we'll wait and see, he said. What aren't you telling us, O enlightened one?
Tellingly, a lady asked if the majority voted against 20mph would they respect this. They will give no such undertaking but would consider the public view when it goes to vote. That'll be a no, then.
I've not been to any more but next week is Kew, my local one and then Whitton which might be worth a laugh as I believe Whitton is pretty anti-20 and being the working class end of the Borough I expect they won't pull their punches.
Meeting was generally better organised than the first one at York House and no-one was told to stop talking now and sit down. Progress!
Councillor gave a presentation about the scheme up front containing some facts and figures, the usual RosPA / Brake stuff about e.g. survival rates at 20 vs 30, 40 and results from other cities - including Bath.
About 100 or so again, average age probably not much shy of 50. Room was sceptical but not hostile.
Data presented by the Council was challenged by a number of people including 1 statistician (not me) - e.g. statistics on KSI included those that took place in Richmond Park - 20 mph
Scheme will cover existing 40mph roads (Kingston bridge to Hampton Ct)
2 cyclists put up arguments against 20mph and were politely disregarded. One of these was me. I'd rather traffic minimised the TED and got past me, frankly. One lady was typing minutes for a local cycling club, she seemed to think the idea of wanting cars to pass seemed a bit mad. Says it all really.
One guy made a point that as we'll all be doing 20 does this mean the speed bumps will be removed.... er, no.
Some alternative ideas were put to the council including better enforcement of the standard we already have. The councillor said this was for the Met, essentially, 'yes but not out problem' - bit of a cop out (no pun)
No statement on what they will do when they have a compliance problem in a years' time - we'll wait and see, he said. What aren't you telling us, O enlightened one?
Tellingly, a lady asked if the majority voted against 20mph would they respect this. They will give no such undertaking but would consider the public view when it goes to vote. That'll be a no, then.
I've not been to any more but next week is Kew, my local one and then Whitton which might be worth a laugh as I believe Whitton is pretty anti-20 and being the working class end of the Borough I expect they won't pull their punches.
pewe said:
I stand to be corrected but I was recently told by someone in the know that 20mph limits are unenforceable.
Central Govt. allows Councils to put them into place providing they are NOT enforced.
In order to have enforceable limits requires an Act of Parliament.
It answered the question I posed to him as to why you never see speed traps etc. on 20mph roads.
Certainly around Reading these limits seem to be widely ignored so it seems to be a total waste of money RBC paying for signage.
Don't get me wrong I think urban speed limits are a good thing given the mix of road traffic, cyclists, pedestrians etc. but surely there's a better way than current - more 30mph cameras on urban roads?
Cheers, Pewe
Cheers Pewe but I think differently, Islington set the precedent in 2014 with targeted enforcement and I know there have been threads in other SPL or the Bikers' section about people being NIP'd in 20s, so I reckon the word's out on that one. Central Govt. allows Councils to put them into place providing they are NOT enforced.
In order to have enforceable limits requires an Act of Parliament.
It answered the question I posed to him as to why you never see speed traps etc. on 20mph roads.
Certainly around Reading these limits seem to be widely ignored so it seems to be a total waste of money RBC paying for signage.
Don't get me wrong I think urban speed limits are a good thing given the mix of road traffic, cyclists, pedestrians etc. but surely there's a better way than current - more 30mph cameras on urban roads?
Cheers, Pewe
Everyone fill this in: https://haveyoursay.citizenspace.com/richmondecs/2...
Hoofy said:
Thanks for the update.
Simply that the new 20 mph limit is proposed to apply to stretches of road that are currently 40 mph as well as 30 mph, which most notably is the section mentioned above. Excludes A316 and A205.2gins said:
Scheme will cover existing 40mph roads (Kingston bridge to Hampton Ct)
Sorry, what do you mean by this?2gins said:
Hoofy said:
Thanks for the update.
Simply that the new 20 mph limit is proposed to apply to stretches of road that are currently 40 mph as well as 30 mph, which most notably is the section mentioned above. Excludes A316 and A205.2gins said:
Scheme will cover existing 40mph roads (Kingston bridge to Hampton Ct)
Sorry, what do you mean by this?My advice would be to use fact and not b
ks like "staring at speedo" as a reason to be against the limit. I don't believe the journey time / pollution argument is valid also if you take into account extra fuel required to accelerate to 30mph vs 20mph and brake dust from braking and the next set of traffic lights or junction 100m up the road in city centers. At the end of the day, most people know drives won't drive at 20mph, however if they can get drivers to think a bit more and drive at 25-28mph instead of 35-37mph then that could be classed as a win.
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