20 Is Plenty, Maybe? No. I Don't Know So Let's Talk About It

"Chappie" (johngaffney) 05/28/2014 at 10:00 • Filed to: speed limits, 20 is plenty, slow, fast

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As I perused my Facebook wall after my beloved New York Rangers took an embarrassing game 5 loss to the Montreal Canadiens, I cam across a particularly polarizing kinja reply to an entry published on Gizmodo about !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

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The Comment in question, stated that our country is long overdue for a "20 is plenty" type of rule, and made mention of how the UK already has implemented similar kinds of speed enforcements. It got me thinking because it's a discussion that, as gear heads, is usually cut and dry, but in reality has a lot of depth and is worth exploring.

Now, I'm of the opinion that highway speed limits across the board are too low and the fact that we haven't made clogging up the left lane a finable offense yet nationally absurd, but I think there is an argument to be made that city traffic congestion is worsened by late braking, heavy footed motorists. The cities that dot the Northeast corridor all have major traffic congestion, and obviously the population of those cities is the biggest factor, but I think there's a case to be made for the way we control congestion in major populated areas. It is much easier to time and offset light changes on roads when the speed is lower, and it's also possible to impose speed laws that are only in effect during the daytime when streets are the most crowded, allowing motorists freedom for quicker transportation when it is both safer and more logical. A 20 mph speed limit at 12AM doesn't make much sense, and it would only hinder motorists, but at 5pm it would be both less stressful and much easier to manage.

I'd like to point out that none of this thought process is taking into account emissions. Unlike Paris, or most European cities for that matter, our major cities still have some pretty big, pretty inefficient vehicles, and used cars are cheaper to insure, which means your dads Crown Victoria is still probably on the road, only now a lot older and worse off. Not that going slower won't help raise the fuel economy of a Crown Vic, but it's going to be idling and burning up fuel quickly regardless, as will most of the major SUV's of the last 15 years still on the road, not to mention the many billions of trillions of billions of F-150's.

For Sweden > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 10:01

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o_O

NOPE

jariten1781 > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 10:19

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Many cities already have a blanket 25ish mph speed limit for side streets. Putting something like that on major 8 lane thoroughfares or the like would be silly.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 10:21

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I factor this into the whole "55 mph speed limit" thing that supposedly was going to save fuel.

If all engines are built different, and all their transmissions are geared different, you can't gaurantee anything in regards to fuel economy at any given mph. It's impossible.

I know with modern transmissions, they can calm themselves down pretty well when traveling at a consistent speed, but it's still a variable that's completely .

Nibby > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 10:21

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Last night didn't happen. What game 5?

Nibbles > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 10:22

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Introduction, check

Thesis, check

Body, check

Conclusion, wait. Where's the conclusion? I feel like you forgot to type at least one entire paragraph here.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 10:23

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The problem with the downtown I live in is a lack of construction detour planning. Traffic flows fine normally but when one road goes down to one lane each way and the nearby roads to that one are either closed or also down to one lane, you place a lot of stress and traffic on the remaining avenues.

It would also help if people remembered the basic rules of driving. Intentionally blocking an intersection because you "had a green light" and insisted on being on the person in front of you's bumper prevents the other lane from moving forward and causing more congestion. That won't change due to the speed limit being raised/lowered.

Two Drink Minimum > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 10:25

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Artificially low speed limits are a disaster. And the value of lower limits have been thoroughly debunked, as Jalopnik reported a ways back .

You're talking about 20 miles per hour here. 20! At that speed, the old guy in the walker from Office Space will be passing you on the left. The only reason a large city would impose such a ridiculous limit would be to discourage cars from taking to the roads at all.

The Compromiser > Nibbles 05/28/2014 at 11:07

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I think the comments are to be the conclusion, or lack thereof.

Chappie > Nibbles 05/28/2014 at 11:31

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that's because I don't have one. Honestly I'm torn on the idea, primarily because I have experienced heavy driving conditions where city traffic doesn't move at all and when it does, people are so eager to move that they are hard accelerating and late braking.

If you could move traffic along steadily at 20 during rush hour vs. Heavy stop and go, I think it'd be both more efficient and less stressful.

Driving through broad street in Philadelphia at 4 or 5 flat out sucks. You get nowhere and you see rear endings all the time because of over-eager drivers.

I'm not calling this a solution or trying to present a logical argument. I'm saying let's hash out why this is or isn't a good idea and if it's not, what is?

Nibbles > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 11:35

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I got ya. I don't even really know why, but for some reason I just found the post hard to comprehend. Like my mind was reaching out for something else that just wasn't there.

Chappie > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 05/28/2014 at 12:14

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I completely agree with construction planning. We as a country are terrible at it, and I think beureaucracy plays a major role. The commuter ultimately gets screwed, but sometimes, especially in cities like Boston or DC where roads are old and don't particularly lead to anywhere, you almost can't avoid it.

Chappie > Nibbles 05/28/2014 at 13:08

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I also originally wrote this at like 11:45 last night, so I'm sure that didn't help haha.

Chappie > Two Drink Minimum 05/28/2014 at 13:25

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I understand, yes I am talking about 20 lol. Have you ever driven through Manhattan, DC, Philadelphia or Boston during rush hour traffic? It's awful, and because of the severity of stop and go traffic, you probably average under 20.

Look, I'm not proposing you lower the speed limit full time, only during rush hour, and even then I'm not sure. What I do know is that it's a lot easier as a city to plan for volume traffic when you have a standard speed limit. The slower it is, the less chance of aggressive speeding and the easier it should be to handle higher volume.

Two Drink Minimum > Chappie 05/28/2014 at 15:52

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Yeah, I've lived and commuted in my share of big cities (Chicago, SF), and driven in both Boston and NYC. Awful is definitely the right word. But I never got the sense that speed was the problem in creating congestion.

Once the roads near capacity, progress is gated by throughput at intersections and bottlenecks created by busses, double-parked vehicles, and cars that block the intersection box when the light switches (not to mention tunnel and bridge approaches). Maybe the lower limit prevents some unnecessary braking that ripples back through the flow, but I'm inclined to believe that once the road gets crowded, other flow factors become unavoidable.