London ULEZ, Bristol CAZ and Wales 20 mph pushbacks

[matacaster]

I would have thought that at 20mph, most diesel and petrol cars will be below their 'sweet spot' in terms of mpg and pollution, anyone able to confirm/ not this? Thus the 20mph figure could actually result in more deaths due to pollution increase, than directly due to collisions.

 

[PeterC]

I would have thought that at 20mph, most diesel and petrol cars will be below their 'sweet spot' in terms of mpg and pollution, anyone able to confirm/ not this? Thus the 20mph figure could actually result in more deaths due to pollution increase, than directly due to collisions.

I don't know if a level road where I could get a long enough uninterrupted run at 20 to check. My car doesn't have a lot of variation between 30 and 60 if I can keep up a steady speed but drops off rapidly when faster of course.

The only roads that I use regularly where I can do a steady 20 also happen to be steep hills.

 

[stuu]

I would have thought that at 20mph, most diesel and petrol cars will be below their 'sweet spot' in terms of mpg and pollution, anyone able to confirm/ not this? Thus the 20mph figure could actually result in more deaths due to pollution increase, than directly due to collisions.

No, they don't. There's lots of studies online showing that. At 30mph cars aren't in their sweet spot either... and also going slower should be a bit smoother in terms of speeding up and slowing down. Then you have electric vehicles becoming increasingly common which make the question moot

 

[mikeb42]

No - lots of major roads in urban areas have 30mph limits - see the map in post 26

Except, that is, for the reality of journeys on the ground - in which pretty much every single road in the capital city is now 20mph. This includes nearly 100% of the roads everyone actually uses to get anywhere including nearly all of those that would be described as "main roads" by anyone not being deliberately obtuse.

Most of the roads remaining at 30mph are a few arterial routes, many of which were until recently 40mph urban dual carriageways engineered as such for much of their length.

The parochial windbags at the assembly have also managed to recently reduce the main route out of Cardiff to... pretty much the rest of the world... from 70mph to 50mph for most its 17+ mile extent from Gabalfa interchange to the M4 beyond the eastern edge of Newport. That'll be the single most economically and practically important route in the entire nation then - but no problem, nothing to see here.

The petition raised via the official Senedd Petition route re the asinine indiscriminate 20mph idiocy has so far garnered getting on for 500,000 signatures - unprecedented by a gigantic margin. That's approximately 1/3rd of the entire adult population of the nation. At least in the earlier stages of this petition's progress, sampling by reputable journalists confirmed that the signatories are predominantly genuine members of the Welsh electorate.

At least in Bristol, which has also developed a fetish for 20mph restrictions, they are so far largely applied in a nuanced manner on roads where it is less obviously preposterous.

Much as it pains me to agree with a Westminster Tory, Penny Mordaunt had it exactly right in describing the use of a 20mph default as "absolutely insane" other than in missing out the profanity that belongs between the two words provided.

"Welcome to Wales - We Are Closed for Business."

 

[Dai Corner]

The parochial windbags at the assembly have also managed to recently reduce the main route out of Cardiff to... pretty much the rest of the world... from 70mph to 50mph for most its 17+ mile extent from Gabalfa interchange to the M4 beyond the eastern edge of Newport. That'll be the single most economically and practically important route in the entire nation then - but no problem, nothing to see here.

Don't forget that for those keeping Welsh Labour in power anything that worsens links with England is welcome. Or that if it wasn't for the current First Minister the new M4 would be under construction.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Sep 2023 ==

Except, that is, for the reality of journeys on the ground - in which pretty much every single road in the capital city is now 20mph. This includes nearly 100% of the roads everyone actually uses to get anywhere including nearly all of those that would be described as "main roads" by anyone not being deliberately obtuse.

Unfortunately, many 'main roads' are 'residential' and therefore 20mph.

 

[stuu]

The parochial windbags at the assembly have also managed to recently reduce the main route out of Cardiff to... pretty much the rest of the world... from 70mph to 50mph for most its 17+ mile extent from Gabalfa interchange to the M4 beyond the eastern edge of Newport. That'll be the single most economically and practically important route in the entire nation then - but no problem, nothing to see here.

Having driven along there many, many times, I find the idea that the 50mph limit has any economic effect whatsoever highly unlikely, given that most of the time 50mph is a distant dream

 

[lachlan]

It’s interesting to read the arguments about efficiency and a “sweet spot” for ICE cars. A quick Google suggests it’s 50 mph - shall we reduce maximum speed limits to 50 so we’re all driving at the optimum speed?

 

[mikeb42]

Having driven along there many, many times, I find the idea that the 50mph limit has any economic effect whatsoever highly unlikely, given that most of the time 50mph is a distant dream

Around 8am and 4pm perhaps. For the other 20 hours a day, the journey time impact is really significant. In my experience of a particular journey from further away into Cardiff it takes 5 minutes longer in free flow conditions than just a few years ago, entirely attributable to this litany of limits.

I'm fortunate in that I don't have to do it all that often. A colleague who has to do this ~480 times a year has had 40 waking hours, 5 working days, of his life airily thieved away just by that alone. Consider what would happen in most cases if an employer unilaterally decided to take 5 days a year of annual leave off their employees. All out strike comes to mind...

This sort of thing is being repeated all over. Politicians are relying on the general innumeracy and lack of quantitative intuition of most of the population so they can get away with throwing out some trite platitude about "It only adds 1 minute to the average journey" in the hope nobody is sharp enough to realise that the cumulative effect of that is really significant. Especially when it comes on top of god knows how many other measures that keep increasing the friction involved in accomplishing the simplest task.

 

[greyman42]

That echo chamber is repeated in the Daily Express (which is dying on its a***), GB News (which gets about 0.3 per cent of total viewers) and shock jocks on talk radio.

They think they speak for most. They don't.

They seem to speak for a lot of people in the real world that i know.

 

[stuu]

I'm fortunate in that I don't have to do it all that often. A colleague who has to do this ~480 times a year has had 40 waking hours, 5 working days, of his life airily thieved away just by that alone. Consider what would happen in most cases if an employer unilaterally decided to take 5 days a year of annual leave off their employees. All out strike comes to mind...

On the plus side he will be saving several hundred pounds in fuel, and maintenance costs. But anyway, things change all the time. New road layouts, new developments with extra sets of traffic lights. The world changes, what was once seen as ok isn't any more, in many different parts of our lives

 

[lachlan]

On the plus side he will be saving several hundred pounds in fuel, and maintenance costs. But anyway, things change all the time. New road layouts, new developments with extra sets of traffic lights. The world changes, what was once seen as ok isn't any more, in many different parts of our lives

Exactly. Compare it to a bus route being withdrawn. A new station opening adding a few minutes to journey times. Etc

 

[The Ham]

I was thinking about this when driving about the other day. There’s actually an awful lot of 30mph in suburban areas. Can be miles and miles of it. That’s a passable trundle if the roads are narrow and busy, but 20mph is really really slow - a third longer journey every time is going to add up.
AIUI getting exemptions in Wales would be hard work - lots of hoops to jump through and the militants like cycling groups are going to object as routine. The irony of course being that the speed limits don’t apply to cyclists so they can whizz through!

Let's say you do 5,000 miles a year in speed limits of 20mph, and you now average 18.75mph Vs 25mph the extra time over the course of a year that's a loss of 67 minutes, or about 77 seconds a week.

 

[Ediswan]

Let's say you do 5,000 miles a year in speed limits of 20mph, and you now average 18.75mph Vs 25mph the extra time over the course of a year that's a loss of 67 minutes, or about 77 seconds a week.

5000 miles at 25 mph -> 200 hours
5000 miles at 18.75 mph -> 267 hours
The difference is 67 hours

 

[The Ham]

5000 miles at 25 mph -> 200 hours
5000 miles at 18.75 mph -> 267 hours
The difference is 67 hours

Yes sorry, my mistake.

 

[Sunil_P]

Had to drive my diesel car to get its MOT done today, but had to pay the £12.50 ULEZ on top of what the MOT cost. Hadn't actually driven it for 4 weeks, mind

 

[MotCO]

The Telegraph is reporting that the PM is going to block new 20mph schemes

Access Restricted

Rishi Sunak is expected to block councils from introducing new 20mph zones as part of a “plan for motorists”.

The Prime Minister will use his party’s conference in Manchester at the weekend to announce that he will scale back low-traffic neighbourhoods and make it easier for drivers to challenge parking fines.

He is set to unveil plans to curb the powers of councils to introduce new 20mph speed limits on main roads.

The policies come in the wake of the Tories’ shock victory in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election amid anger at Labour policy towards motorists.

The package of measures is also expected to include limits on councils’ abilities to levy fines from traffic cameras and restrictions on enforcing box junction infringements.

More blue water between Labour and Tories? Is there an election coming soon?

 

[johncrossley]

Remember Boris Johnson's pro-motorist repositioning of TfL immediately after the 2008 election victory? That didn't last long, because of its impracticability. Similarly, whatever rhetoric the government spouts, it will make very little difference *in practice*.

Any journey time calculations have to include times when the road is closed due to fatal or serious accidents.

 

[Sunil_P]

So pro-motorist that he canned the East London River Crossing between Beckton and Thamesmead?

 

[Krokodil]

The Telegraph is reporting that the PM is going to block new 20mph schemes

Why can't he just let the democratically elected representatives get on with local government?

 

[Merle Haggard]

It’s interesting to read the arguments about efficiency and a “sweet spot” for ICE cars. A quick Google suggests it’s 50 mph - shall we reduce maximum speed limits to 50 so we’re all driving at the optimum speed?

There was certainly legislation that required the fuel consumption in different situations to be available for all new cars. The one most quoted by car dealers was 'at a steady 56 m.p.h.' (not as obscure as it sounds, it's a round amount in km/h). This resulted in cars being designed to have the lowest fuel consumption at that speed. Didn't necessarily make for the most efficient overall. Didn't apply to car derived vans, so the Escort van had a different axle ratio to the car (and from experience went better).

It seems to have disappeared.

 

[stuu]

The Telegraph is reporting that the PM is going to block new 20mph schemes

Access Restricted

More blue water between Labour and Tories? Is there an election coming soon?

But the text of the article says "main roads', which by and large no one is proposing anyway. So it's something to get a headline with no substance, again.

Surely box camera junctions help motorists who aren’t total imbeciles?

 

[johncrossley]

So pro-motorist that he canned the East London River Crossing between Beckton and Thamesmead?

Exactly! So he was actually less pro-motorist than Livingstone. The cancellation of the bridge was less than a year into the mayoralty. Before long there were the initial primitive cycle superhighways which were replaced within a few years by proper segregated ones. The rhetoric that came straight after the 2008 election was turned on its head.

 

[birchesgreen]

The Telegraph is reporting that the PM is going to block new 20mph schemes

Access Restricted

More blue water between Labour and Tories? Is there an election coming soon?

Its a shame the PM feels so powerless he has to try and seize power from local councillors.

 

[bramling]

Around 8am and 4pm perhaps. For the other 20 hours a day, the journey time impact is really significant. In my experience of a particular journey from further away into Cardiff it takes 5 minutes longer in free flow conditions than just a few years ago, entirely attributable to this litany of limits.

I'm fortunate in that I don't have to do it all that often. A colleague who has to do this ~480 times a year has had 40 waking hours, 5 working days, of his life airily thieved away just by that alone. Consider what would happen in most cases if an employer unilaterally decided to take 5 days a year of annual leave off their employees. All out strike comes to mind...

This sort of thing is being repeated all over. Politicians are relying on the general innumeracy and lack of quantitative intuition of most of the population so they can get away with throwing out some trite platitude about "It only adds 1 minute to the average journey" in the hope nobody is sharp enough to realise that the cumulative effect of that is really significant. Especially when it comes on top of god knows how many other measures that keep increasing the friction involved in accomplishing the simplest task.

Indeed, and we wonder why most people are either at best apathetic or at worst down right hostile towards the current crop of politicians. When large numbers of people lose faith in the democratic system then there’s a *big* problem. It is exactly this reason why people like Trump end up in power.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Sep 2023 ==

Its a shame the PM feels so powerless he has to try and seize power from local councillors.

I’d view it differently, and take the view that power is delegated to councils and councillors, and if they can’t behave responsibly then it’s time for that delegated power to be withdrawn. I’m no fan of Sunak by a long way, however I’m quite happy for him to do this.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Sep 2023 ==

Why can't he just let the democratically elected representatives get on with local government?

Surely the answer to that is obvious, namely that it’s often going to be the case that national interests conflict with local ones. We saw enough unpleasant parochialism during Covid.

 

[Krokodil]

Surely the answer to that is obvious, namely that it’s often going to be the case that national interests conflict with local ones. We saw enough unpleasant parochialism during Covid.

But this has nothing to do with the national interest. If a local council decides that it wants to introduce a 20 zone to make local roads safer then how does it negatively impact the country as a whole?

The PM's recent announcements, coupled with the fact that fuel duty has been frozen for god knows how many years now, demonstrate clearly that the "war on motorists" is a Daily Mail fiction.

By the way, I recently visited the Swiss alpine village of Mürren to photograph the 1967-built railcars before they get replaced with low-floor Stadlers. There was a speed limit locally of 20km/h (12.4mph). I'd like to see more of that in areas where pedestrians are likely to be walking along the carriageway, such as in cul-de-sacs or village streets with no sidewalks (using the US term to make my meaning clear). Anywhere else in an urban area can be 30km/h (20mph), except for trunk roads with no houses/shops/public buildings facing them.

 

[DC1989]

Does Rishi Sunak know he is in charge of a G7 country and is not in fact a local councillor for a tiny village?

What is a 'main road' anyway?

It's desperate, desperate stuff. One hyper local byelection result has lead to this being his overarching policy.

 

[squizzler]

I would not be surprised if this “plan for motorists” includes the reallocation of kindergarten playgrounds as drifting tracks and officially sanctioned drag races on every high street.

 

[stuu]

I would not be surprised if this “plan for motorists” includes the reallocation of kindergarten playgrounds as drifting tracks and officially sanctioned drag races on every high street.

I'll be disappointed if he doesn't let us have good British leaded petrol back

 

[The Ham]

5000 miles at 25 mph -> 200 hours
5000 miles at 18.75 mph -> 267 hours
The difference is 67 hours

However, that's assuming that you can average those speeds (which is basically free flow conditions with few delays for junctions).

The reality is that for a lot of people they are likely to be noticeably over the 200 hours anyway, especially if they are driving at peak hours, or they have to go over roundabouts, through traffic lights, wait for crossings, etc. as whilst you'll be delayed just as much as 20 as 30 it means that a lot more of your time you are traveling less than 30 anyway, so the benefit from traveling at 30 is reduced.

Also, 200 hours over a working year (225 working days) is 53 minutes a day of driving, the extra 18 minutes a day from the extra 67 hours (especially compared to the 9 hours that someone's at work) is not all that much.

However, again, that assumes a free run, chances are they are already delayed by that much several times a year (if not nearly that much every day).

Even if your average is 23mph (rather than 25) then the difference falls from 67 hours to 50 hours (work day daily journey travel time of 58 minutes).

Anyway, I'm looking forwards to the government approved car meets in the local business park/retail park, and being able to annoy all those older busy bodies who don't like cars as they are aways stop us from enjoying them.

 

[Enthusiast]

In my experience with the Bristol CAZ, most people have cars that can pass through without paying. Those who don’t just drive around it.

That's none too difficult in Bristol because the zone is only about three miles across. The London ULEZ covers almost 700 square miles and radiates up to 20 miles from the centre. Most of the people affected by it need to get into and out of it or simply move within it, rather than get round it.