20 is plenty

[rinserepeat]

Just curious of people's thoughts on recent push by city council to reduce the default speed limit in city to 20 (15 at schools). The claim is the language is different this time so that beacon hill only has to do it for Boston. I'm wondering if this will gain any traction.

 

[sm89]

The speed limit! I always knew that cars drag raced at 90mph down Beacon because the 30mph speed limit was too high. It's about time they lower it!!!

But in all honesty, it will help somewhat city-wide, but the real problem in a lot of these areas is the design of the roadway. People who speed know that they speed, they just don't care. We need to design roads so that it is impossible to speed. The average speed on a residential street in Boston is already only 22mph.

 

[fattony]

I support reduced speed limits of course, but sm89 is correct that roadway design is vastly more important. People drive at a comfortable speed, regardless of the posted limit.

 

[DZH22]

Would this affect roads like Storrow, or just be for roads without posted speeds? I'd be more supportive of 25. Rolling along at 20 can be insanely slow depending on the road and what's around you.

 

[davem]

Would this affect roads like Storrow, or just be for roads without posted speeds? I'd be more supportive of 25. Rolling along at 20 can be insanely slow depending on the road and what's around you.

My thought was they are going for 20 because of the common 5 over interpretation. And even though I drive like a bat out of hell on highways, I still keep to 25 on most residential and downtown streets. 30 (and therefore 35) is way too fast.

 

[datadyne007]

Would this affect roads like Storrow, or just be for roads without posted speeds? I'd be more supportive of 25. Rolling along at 20 can be insanely slow depending on the road and what's around you.

Storrow Drive is a "limited access highway" and wouldn't be part of it. It would only apply to regular streets.

 

[Randomgear]

 

[Arlington]

In an era when gas is too cheap, lowering the speed limit is one great way to make driving less attractive, and make other modes more-likely-to-be-preferred for "neighborhood" trips and the "inner" part of commutes.

Obviously, they need to follow up with concrete changes (literally) but in the famous german railroad dictum Organization before Electronics before Concrete, a great first "organizing" step is lowering the speed limit to 20mph and more advisory signage.

Then come crossings and signals, then come physical calmings.

 

[whighlander]

Just curious of people's thoughts on recent push by city council to reduce the default speed limit in city to 20 (15 at schools). The claim is the language is different this time so that beacon hill only has to do it for Boston. I'm wondering if this will gain any traction.

It just makes scofflaws out of more people -- cars, especially with manual transmissions don't do much 'easy' driving at 20 --- 30 is much more "natural" for an ordinary city street

On Storrow for example where it is posted at 40mph most traffic moves at 45 to 50mph

 

[datadyne007]

Boston Police Dept. @bostonpolice
BPD installed these new speed radar signs to help you see how fast you're traveling #NoNeedforSpeed #VisionZeroBos

https://twitter.com/bostonpolice/status/715618302257664001

Also:

City of Boston ‏@CityOfBoston 26s ago

Here are two studies we looked at regarding their effectiveness in slowing traffic: http://trid.trb.org/view/1998/C/541931 & http://trid.trb.org/view/2005/C/772694

https://twitter.com/CityOfBoston/status/715619613191618560

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Storrow Drive is a "limited access highway" and wouldn't be part of it. It would only apply to regular streets.

Yep. Only the fully city-maintained streets. DCR parkways are state responsibility and thus remain speed traps until MassHighway acts to traffic calm. That includes the more street-like roads that happen to group under DCR control. And any state-numbered routes like Comm Ave. (US 20/MA 2/MA 30) and the others carrying MA 9, MA 28, etc. still have to have sign-posted speed limits even on their city-maintained portions, regardless of whether it matches the default city speed limit or not.


Anywhere else it's the default unless posted otherwise. And there aren't too many purely city-control streets where higher speed limits are truly necessary for traffic flow. Either because they've got too many signalized intersections to begin with (Mass Ave.), or because the ones that are drag strips (Beacon) were mis-designed as such and should never have been abused as sanctioned drag strips.

Lots of densely-settled cities and 'burbs in MA have set defaults of 20 or 25. Kind of surprised it's taken BTD this long to get in sync with its neighbors on that. People are still going to rampantly ignore and get away with it because there's only so many eyes you can assign to nailing that many abusers. But establishing better consistency and higher-profile enforcement can only help.

 

[citylover94]

It just makes scofflaws out of more people -- cars, especially with manual transmissions don't do much 'easy' driving at 20 --- 30 is much more "natural" for an ordinary city street

On Storrow for example where it is posted at 40mph most traffic moves at 45 to 50mph

Again you come back with more cars are more important than people. Seriously this is so disrespectful towards anyone that uses walking as an integral part of their transportation. If its possible to save 4 out of 10 peoples lives who are hit by cars it is horribly negligent of us as a society not to take the opportunity to do that. Also how many people really drive manual cars in the city and even so a slight inconvenience as a motorist is still less important than someones life.

Also "natural"?!? There is nothing natural about driving unlike people who have a natural average walking speed of about 3 to 5 mph cars have no set of "natural" driving speeds. To use that as support for having a higher speed limit is a ridiculous.

 

[Semass]

You could also actually enforce the limit and other traffic laws that are already on the books. IMHO, Boston cops think far too highly of themselves to ever be bothered with writing traffic citations. They are much more concerned with dressing up in "tactical gear" and sitting in their SUVs than in ticketing motorists.

 

[datadyne007]

You could also actually enforce the limit and other traffic laws that are already on the books. IMHO, Boston cops think far too highly of themselves to ever be bothered with writing traffic citations. They are much more concerned with dressing up in "tactical gear" and sitting in their SUVs than in ticketing motorists.

While this may be somewhat true of other urban police departments around the country (see: the last 3 years), it's not really for Boston. The BPD is consistently a model police force, out in the communities practicing community-oriented policing.

 

[fattony]

In an era when gas is too cheap, lowering the speed limit is one great way to make driving less attractive, and make other modes more-likely-to-be-preferred for "neighborhood" trips and the "inner" part of commutes.

Speed limit has no effect on how much time short trips take.

 

[bigeman312]

While this may be somewhat true of other urban police departments around the country (see: the last 3 years), it's not really for Boston. The BPD is consistently a model police force, out in the communities practicing community-oriented policing.

+1

 

[tysmith95]

I think more downtown Boston roads should be converted from one way multi lane streets into two way streets. For example Tremont street has four lanes going in one direction for alot of it's length. Converting streets like Tremont from one way traffic to two way traffic would slow down traffic and make the city easier to navigate for drivers. It is less intimidating for pedestrians to cross a two way street with slow moving traffic than it is to cross a one way street with multiple lanes.

I agree that a 20mph speed limit is a good idea however 90% massholes don't pay attention to speed limits anyway. Improving road design is a better alternative.

 

[Semass]

While this may be somewhat true of other urban police departments around the country (see: the last 3 years), it's not really for Boston. The BPD is consistently a model police force, out in the communities practicing community-oriented policing.

I don't disagree that Boston does better than most in the neighborhoods, especially with community relations. I wholeheartedly disagree that the BPD does anything to enforce traffic laws. It is my experience in the downtown area, especially, that BPD will stand and watch some pf the most egregious examples of light running, speeding, box blocking, and bus stop blocking.

 

[Matthew]

The way I see it, it should be possible to reduce the speed limit on on a street to 20 mph without endless red tape. That's what this enables.

That doesn't mean every street has to be 20 mph. But there are obviously plenty of good candidates, typically the streets with significant residential or walk-up commercial development.

The UK has readily adopted the "Twenty-is-plenty" creed, and that's basically how it goes here. They do very intrusive traffic calming physical interventions in the neighborhoods. Not just speed humps, but barriers in the roadway, and lots of filtered permeability. I have to say that once you get into the countryside, the speeds go up fast. Even narrow country lanes are 50 mph(!!). With no sidewalks. [I'm not a fan.]

Personally I think that speeds above 20 mph on city streets should be justified through intensive studies, not the other way around. It's continually a source of amazement to me how much work goes into safety studies for just about every other mode of transportation, but a "40 mph" sign on a city street barely gets a minute of review, even though that's by far one of the deadliest decisions made by a transportation department.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Beyond speed limits, you really need serious traffic calming measures on the major "too wide" roadways to make this work.

Strategically placed raised crosswalks. Purpose built roadway pinch points, lane shifts, lane squeezes, etc. Also restore some two way streets, carve out lane width for segregated/protected bike lanes... That is the only effective way to slow down the traffic.