Get Ready for 15 MPH Speed Limits

Where do I sign up?

I'm sure 15mph can work some places, but I'm also sure it can't work other places.

Lets just keep our common sense about it..

Good idea, speeds are too high in towns, and even where speed cameras are in place, people just speed inbetween them -- maybe some kind of chip can be put into all cars, so that when they enter a town it limits the cars speed to 20mph or something?

But too many questions still not answered on the eco-town as far as I can see.

What are the houses to be made from?

Will the material be from the local land, or imported from a 'sustainable' forest in deepest Brazil?

Great idea, but like most eco-developments the materials are still imported, which to me defeats the object of it being eco!

Anyway, we'll see how it all goes...

I suppose they could always bring back the horse drawn wagons to meet their speed requirements.

So theoritically, I could get pulled over by a cop for doing some running speed bursts (I can do that at just under 20 miles per hour) and cops can detect me, those big display things that cops have out as suggestions to people that they may be going over the speed limit, I like to try to break 20 mph, and so I use them to get my speed. On a bike, I can easily get over 20 mph, and sustain it for a good amount of time.

They will need a lot of speed cameras or it will never work...

15mph makes a NEV look really practical, and a bike practical for most.

Our government (US) needs to take some cues from them. All cities should be required to have a no car zone, possibly even pedestrian only, maybe with separated bike paths.

This sounds lovely to me. Peaceful. Humans in contact with one another. Outside, walking, getting exercise. Environmentally beneficial? Yes. A happier way to live? Yes!!!! Where do I go to sign up?

I think this is an excellent idea. While it would never work for a city thats already set in how it does things, I think it's something that would be doable in a town thats brand new. Those who choose to move to this new "eco town" will know and want what theyre getting into.

Um, this is an absolutely stupid idea. I'm all for being green, but being green shouldn't be about being backwards. In the UK, they already ticket bicyclists for speeding in certain low speed zones. Is it a good idea to go without cars? Yes, but this isn't the way to do it.

a lot of cities DO have no car zones; they're called bus malls.

hi - I live in a small town in England, an old town in the north west not a new eco town, and this sounds like a great idea. the roads into town are narrow, with poor visibility, and no-one pays much attention to the 30 mph speed limits on the approaches to and within the town. despite all the other problems to do with these eco-towns not being very well thought through by the government, well done Caroline Flint on this little bit!

Not many people seem to know this but flat streets (like we have now) were originally developed for bike traffic and existed even before the first Model-T. I would like to see us get back to that someday.

This is stupid. How is this "green"? At 15 mph auto engines are extremely inefficient meaning they not only use a huge amount of gas (why do you think cars get better mileage on the highway despite higher power requirements?), but they're also gonna spew emissions because of all the gas being burned at low RPM's.

The no car zone is a good idea. The 15 mph is not.

The environmental issue is one one problem with our car culture. Every year, about 40,000 people are killed on US roads. Our fatality rates per capita are much higher than the rest of the world, mainly because we just drive too much and take the act of driving too casually.

Like it or not, lower speeds are safer. It may not be convenient to drive 15 or 20 miles per hour, but we could really reduce our horrific traffic fatality rate if we just slowed down for a change.

Ah Willy,

but ELECTRIC CARS (and elec moped et.al.) do GREAT at low speed!

I would love to live so close to downtown that I could either walk or take the bus, unfortunatly I am too far away to walk and I would need to take too many buses to get downtown.

Zig

Audrey,

you can retrofit existing towns and make them more pedestrian / non-car friendly. It's just a question of the will to do it.

The city where I grew up has progressivly beginning in the 80s started to close down streets for cars and open them up for pedestrians and bikes. The"problem" in north america is that most places have never even thought about this. Instead of making cities more pedestrian friendly they made them more car friendly. Even Toronto which at times at least seems to think public transport has comitted that sin in their downtown core by widening the street corners for cars instead of making them more narrow.

It CAN be done, but it takes political will, social acceptance and the most problematic of all: time.

This is what boggles my mind the most, the fact that most people don't seem to realize that you don't pull these huge infrastructure projects off from one day to the other. The end result is that even if technology could save us, the fact that we haven't started using them will come back and bite us in the ass.

higher speed limits!!