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news
30 km an hour sign Flickr, Dennis Skley, CC BY-ND 2.0)Vancouver to trial 30 km/h speed limit - and cyclists will have to comply as well as motorists
A pilot scheme for a 30 km/h speed limit in side streets and residential areas in Vancouver, Canada, will apply not just to motor vehicles but also cyclists after a councillor successfully tabled an amendment to the motion to introduce it.
City councillor Pete Fry’s original motion was adopted by the city council – but only once councillor Melissa De Genova introduced an amendment to have bike riders as well as motorists subject to it, reports Urban Hive.
While Fry, who noted that on average 56 pedestrians are killed in incidents involving motor vehicles each year in the city, backed up his motion with studies and reports showing the safety benefits of lower speed limits in urban areas, De Genova – in what could have come straight from the Lord Winston playbook – relied on anecdote.
“I myself was out with my daughter on a way to a playground near our home and a cyclist who was going very, very fast, blew through a stop sign where we were crossing and used some very choice language towards me and my daughter while we were crossing the street,” she told the council meeting.
“I think that it’s important that instead of pitting vehicles against each other, we’re talking about all vehicles here … all types of vehicles here are capable of going over 30km/h,” she added.
She also highlighted an incident in which she said a pregnant woman was “clipped by a cyclist in Kitsilano,” a district in the British Columbia city.
Her amendment made the motion applicable to “all vehicles” so as to include bicycles, however councillor Michael Wiebe, who voted against the change, said he was “troubled” by the term, arguing that the word vehicles “does not include devices designed to be moved by human power.
“So in speaking to the amendment, we talked about the component of bicycles being ‘all vehicles,’ but then looking at the Motor Vehicle Act, it doesn’t.”
Fry, too, said that use of the phrase “all vehicles” created “a real issue,” adding that he would be “fully supportive of exploring how we can deal with this.”
He also raised the point that unlike motor vehicles, bicycles do not have speedometers, meaning it can be difficult for riders to gauge how fast they are riding.
With the motion passed, the city will now “identify a local street, area, or areas within the city to pilot a 30 kilometre per hour speed limit demonstration project and report back with implementation strategy, timing and budget as well as proposed road design changes by Q3 2019.”
Ultimately, it is hoped that the provincial government will follow Vancouver’s lead and make 30 km/h the default speed limit on residential streets across the province.
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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16 comments
There is a legal precedent in BC already. In 2016 a cyclist sped through a controlled speed zone at a school and was ticketed (along with a number of motor vehicles).
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/speeding-cyclist-gets-ti...
The 30kmh limit should apply to cyclists as well. Obviously many won't have speedometers, so if caught those should receive a warning at first to let them know they are exceeding the limit. In the push to make cycling more acceptable, this would be a minor inconvenience for the sake of the acknowledgement that cyclists need to be accountable.
That sounds like a case of false equivalence to me.
Firstly, cyclists have far less mass than a driver (with their vehicle), so at 30kmh the kinetic energy of a cyclist would be a mere fraction (1/16th?) of the energy of a driver and thus surely the speed limit should be set at 16x higher for a cyclist i.e. 480kmh.
Secondly, the number of collisions that are caused by cyclists is far smaller than that caused by drivers, so it's not worth the time and effort to enforce a rule that has no substantial effect on road safety.
Thirdly, our modern environment seems to lead to people becoming overweight and not exercising enough, so it would make far more sense to encourage people to cycle by removing barriers to them doing so (e.g. provide safe infrastructure; change road priorities to favour cyclists; provide cycling facilities etc.) as that would increase the overall health of the population. Also, consider that a person on a bike is a person that isn't travelling by motor vehicle and thus increasing the air pollution.
Putting aside the absurdity of the kinetic energy, your 'proposal' would require a calibrated speedo to be fitted to every bicycle.
Please outline how this would be achieved and the costs involved and who would be required to have a speedo, differentiating between adults, children and overseas visitors.
Besides the usual problems with anecdotes and the lack of speedometers, I am totally fine with the speed limit for bicycles if it is indeed enforced for all vehicles.
But I still have to see a place anywhere in the world where this really happens and have meaningful fines.
My local councillor was suggesting lowering the speed limit to twenty in my village; he mentioned it on the village fb group, which immediately filled up with comments about how a twenty limit is pointless because nobody would obey it...
Has the thread been swamped by selfish drivers from outside the village?
Seriously, if you want real opinions ask the people who live by, walk or cycle along and cross the roads involved, it will probably show a very different picture. Many of them may not be on FB (notably the most vulnerable - young children, OAPs etc) or may not want to post a comment.
One benefit of a 20 mph limit is that many drivers will do less than 30, whereas in a 30 limit they'll drive at nearer 40 mph. An information campaign and community speedwatch programme might make a difference.
There have been several cases of locals demanding a speed limit for their village, and when it is implemented, it is the locals who are the ones breaking it.
Ah but they "know the road" and besides there's never anyone crossing at that part and they're all above average drivers who can cope with it.
It's all those "other" drivers wot should obey....
That's exactly what's going on - nobody just drives straight through our village as 'through traffic' ; they stay on the main road. The only people who drive in the village live there or have business there (visiting a resident or a business), and it appears to be them complaining loudest
We're getting into really dodgy ground if laws can be passed based on one councillors anecdote. I realise this is in Canada but imagine this in the UK based on Prof Lord Sir Winston of Anecdata highly suspicious stories of mass assault by cyclists....
From my reading of the Highway Code, I know that we do not come under any of the classifications under national speed limits, but in the section about 20mph limits which is Locally Set Speed Limits no mention is made of vehicle types, so I don't know for sure if non mechanically propelled vehicles come under the rules. Quite happy to be corrected on this one.
I tend to kick a little less in 20 zones, as there tends to be more parked cars, more chances of kids and stuff, but I'm becoming more of a pootler anyway. Even less on shared off road routes.
But of course, no enforcement, so it doesn't matter so much, here at least.
I look forward to reading about a court case where someone challenges the basis for the law due to cycles not requiring speedometers.
Or cyclists could use speedometers? This said unless gravity is involved or we are talking flat and smooth roads you won't catch most people doing more than 20.
Even if you did 30, car drivers would take offence and overtake you.
Yes, they could change the regulations etc. to mandate that all cyclists have to be fitted with calibrated speedometers and then worry about trying to enforce it. However, I expect at some point they'll look at budget constraints and just forget about it entirely.
I don't think 20kmh is beyond most people. Here in Bristol we have 20mph (motoring) limits which works out as 32kmh and yes, vehicles do overtake you even when you're going quicker than that.
Thats because you're on a bike so you *must* be going slowly- they don't need to check the speed limit or their own speedo to know that!