Noting that speeding is the number one cause of deadly car crashes on New York City streets, Transportation Alternatives, the advocacy group, held a "Stop Speeding Summit" Friday Nov. 19, 2010 where speakers from Britain and Hoboken, N.J. both told of successful campaigns to reduce city speed limits.
Rod King, Director of "20's Plenty for Us" in the U.K., told listeners at NYU's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in Soho, Manhattan, that a reduction of the speed limits for cars to 20 miles per hour has been adopted in Portsmouth (population197,000) and other municipalities at low cost and with the backing of local stakeholders. He said the speed reduction offers "more bang for the buck" than any other kind of traffic calming intervention, and makes a city much more bike-friendly.
He noted that a campaign to reduce speed limits like this can be paradigm-shifting, more child-friendly, inexpensive and can save lives, but that advocates much gain the support of "average Joes and Janes" riding around in their cars, not just activists.
King said that a 20 miles-per-hour speed limit does not slow travel time for cars because it's total stops that lengthen travel times, not the speed limit. What's more, "for every 1 mile drop in the speed, there is a 6 percent drop in casualties. Moreover, he said studies show that a 30 miles-per-hour limit "will always deter physical activity" like cycling.
Ian Sacs, Transportation and Parking Director of Hoboken, NJ across the river from Manhattan, said Hoboken is trying to rethink the way we use the street,” and that he is trying a variety of measures to reduce that city’s 25-mile-per-hour speed limit to 20 through the use of engineering (lengthening the no-parking zones near crosswalks and striping more bike lanes), education (ads in local papers and public service announcements) and enforcement (requiring drivers to come to a complete stop when a pedestrian is in a crosswalk where there is no light.)
However, the issue of police participation was brought home when Transportation Alternatives spokesmen asked how many representatives from the NYC Police Department were attending the conference. (Many were invited.) Not a single hand went up in the room, which had more than 100 people present.
Meanwhile, State Senator Thomas K. Duane, who introduced a panel of speakers on safety, pointed out that he has been a big supporter of protected bike lanes and declared, "we're safetying all of Manhattan."
Speakers from hospitals, the health department and community activism spoke about how important it was to combat child and adult obesity by getting people to be more active as walkers and cyclists. But they said fears for their safety stops many people from doing this.
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