Liverpool City Council and the city’s Primary Care Trust (PCT) are working together to fund a £1.7m scheme to introduce 20mph limits to 70% of the city’s roads, according to the 20’s Plenty for Us campaign.
20’s Plenty For Us campaigns for a 20mph default speed limit in residential streets without physical calming.
The campaign says that “recognising the benefits of preventing road deaths, injuries and transport-related illness, £400,000 has been allocated from PCT budgets toward the £1.4m anticipated cost of the council programme to implement 20mph signed-only limits over the next four years”.
The PCT is also reported to be paying £265,000 for a programme of perception surveys and community engagement work on slower speeds.
31% of residential roads in Liverpool currently have 20mph speed limits and this will be extended by a further 39% (587km of roads).
Paula Grey, director of public health for Liverpool, said: “We know that cutting speed can save lives, as well as making our neighbourhoods much more pleasant places to live.
“And by making roads safer we create more opportunities for people to use greener forms of transport – such as cycling and walking – which are also better for their health.”
Rod King, 20’s Plenty for Us founder and campaign director, said: “We believe that implementing wide area 20mph limits in this manner will become an exemplar of how organisations can pool their funding and expertise to benefit their communities with better health, road danger reduction and increased quality of life.
“Liverpool is giving people a real choice in how they travel by removing the fear of fast traffic from community streets. For our part we have been pleased at how responsive both organisations have been to the discussions that 20’s Plenty for Us and our local campaigners have had with them.”
For more information contact Anna Semlyen, 20’s Plenty for Us campaign manager, on 07572120439.
Why not forget about all this 20 mph nonsense and make all towns in Woonerfs. Let’s mix everything together trams, buses, trucks, taxis, cars, motorcycles. bicycles and pedestrians.
By doing this and making the streets once more available for all we can reduce the speed limit to say 5 mph [as thget do abroad] and make all accidents the responsibility of the driver [as they do abroad]. We can take down all traffic signs, remove traffic lights etc. the savings would be enormous. Totally forget the rules of roundabouts and go back some 60 or so years.
Its coming – 20 mph is just the begining. Share everything.
bob craven Lancs
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Rod, aren’t you being a bit selective with your figures?
Roads that remained at 30mph had reductions in casualties, but also had reductions in serious injuries. Portsmouth’s 20mph had an increase in serious injuries.
So how can implementing 20mph limits be “more cost effective” if there are more serious injuries?
Dave Finney – Slough
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Whilst speed is only the cause of a minority of crashes it is implicated in most collisions not being able to be avoided. Lower speeds give everyone more time to avoid collisions and reduce their severity as well. For residential roads there is strong evidence that 30mph as a speed limit is no longer fit for purpose. That is why traffic authorities in Portsmouth, Oxford, Islington, Camden, Bristol, Brighton, Hove, Sheffield, Warrington, Middlebrough, York, Lancashire and Nottingham are all implementing wide-area 20mph limits that are consistent and bring 20mph benefits to most drivers on their home streets.
In Portsmouth there was a 22% reduction in casualties and a 7mph reduction in average speed on faster roads.
Implementing 20mph limits is 6.5 times more cost effective in overall speed reduction that 20mph zones with physical calming.
Driving faster than 20mph in our saturated road network rarely brings about any real reduction in journey times, hence its benefits are minimal.
Liverpool are showing that “joined up” thinking in recognising that real reductions in the health care costs of transport can be reduced by pooling resources. Nurses, hospital and doctors are far too valuable to be wasted on road traffic casualties that are avoidable.
Rod King, Warrington
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How about for a change we introduce penalties for pedestrians, i.e. jaywalking, the number of people that just walk in front of moving cars as if they are invisible is horrendous! A campaign for safer walking would be a far better use of the money.
Tanya, Manchester
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Bad driving causes accidents and accidents cause injuries & death. Speed is not the culprit and to squander valuable resources on the wrong cause is sadly misguided. Until/unless we alter the attitude of road users (all of them: bus drivers, truckers, car drivers, motorcyclists, cyclists AND pedestrians), then we’ll just be throwing good money after bad. We need better driver instruction, with stricter testing/licensing. It’s about time all other road users caught up with the multi-stage, power/weight and age restrictions imposed on learning to ride a motorcycle and then perhaps the increased safety awareness and concern/consideration for others will come in it’s wake. Focus on the proper cause – it is NOT ‘speed’ it’s inattention and aggressive/selfish attitudes.
Steve Mason, Aldershot
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1.7 million pounds?
We are in a recession where a strike is to happen tomorrow and people are losing their jobs. Why are they using our money to implement a scheme unlikely to provide any safety benefit, especially from a PCT budget where our taxes were supposed to pay for hospitals, nurses and doctors!
Dave Finney – Slough
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Although I agree that 20 is plenty, where is the evidence that 20mph speed limit signs alone will reduce speeds enough to make a difference ….?
Is it just me, but when I hear the words “working in partnership” I get a sinking feeling that two insufficient budgets are being combined to produce a larger budget to deliver an ineffectual scheme that does not stand on its own merits; no doubt it ticks the politicians boxes for cheap/quick action.
I’d far prefer extra money to be spent on average speed cameras to back up the concepts.
Pete, Liverpool
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