Written 15/10/08

Campaign for more sensible speed limits -

Traffic in Cambridgeshire has grown by 30% in 10 years. With huge developments planned, this figure will rise even faster.

If you want your children and grandchildren to be safe on our streets, we need to act now!

We want:

Join the team on Histon Green at 3:30pm Monday 20th October

There's a flyer (Adobe/PDF, 76KB) and poster (Adobe/PDF, 51KB) - please download, print, and distribute.

Leave your views on the B1049

On 15/10/08 at 11:00pm Derek Pipe wrote: 20 MPH is impractical. It will clog the villages up even more than they are now at certain times of the day. The emphasis should be on reinforcing current speed limits. e.g. Where are the illuminated/flashing speed warning signs in our villages that we see in many other villages? I won't be supporting this initiative.

On 15/10/08 at 11:13pm Denis Payne wrote: If your worry is congestion, slower speeds actually improve a road's ability to carry more traffic - so it'll ease congestion, not make it worse. What's compelling for me is those figures on what happen in an accident to a pedestrian. It certainly very much has my personal support.

On 17/10/08 at 8:55am Siobhan Mellon wrote: I would like to see a shift in Histon and Impington towards walking, cycling and taking the bus, all of which promote good health, are non-polluting (or in the case of the bus less polluting)and contribute towards a more relaxed and friendly community. A 20 mph speed limit would help shift the balance, making it safer for people who choose to walk and cycle, and reducing the time saved by taking the car. I support it.

On 17/10/08 at 12:40pm Steve Waters wrote: 20 mph is increasingly common in residential areas and some cities are entirely given over to it such as Portsmouth and areas of Norwich; every speed restriction is difficult to enforce but that doesn't mean it won't send a strong signal to all drivers that pedestrians have priority. It's time to redress the balance between the car and more sustainable sorts of transport - cycling and walking.

On 22/10/08 at 2:19pm Steve Unwin wrote: The argument regarding speed limiting because more cars are joining our roads doesn’t stack up. More cars means more congestion, means lower average speeds !?! Therefore the speed limit will naturally come down. Leave it alone. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

On 23/10/08 at 9:53am Cook wrote: The main objective of this campaign is not to reduce congestion, its to increase SAFETY. Reducing speed limits will mean less danger and a more pleasant village in which to live. Congestion (and thus the natural slowing down of traffic) in the village only occurs during peak times, what about all the other times of the day and night when the village has to endure the dangers of these higher speeds? I wonder if those *against* the reduction in speed only from those people who either 1) do not live in Histon/Impington and only pass through it or 2) do live in the village but do not live ON or have to WALK or CYCLE through, or on, the B1049? I can see no benefits at all to keep the speed limits as they are, reducing them means a safer, more pleasant place for all.

On 23/10/08 at 1:59pm Andre Buys wrote: I live in Histon and dont think 20mph will help at all, people will always speed no matter what, the penalties for speeding is not high enough in this country. One more thing cars parked in Station road past the petrol station are forever cuasing congestion its a pain in the neck! The one way system could probably work at peak times dont know what people think about this/?

On 24/10/08 at 8:32am Luke Diamand wrote: It will be interesting to see what effect the guided bus has on congestion in the village once it opens. There should be a bus coming through once every couple of minutes at peak times, which will mean traffic on Station Road and on the way in from Girton being stopped to let it pass. So maybe then the village won't be so clogged up, and we can have sensible speed limits.

On 26/10/08 at 5:31pm Greg Harewood wrote: My comments here have been disappearing into the aether, but I am assured that that's now fixed :-) First I said.....(paraphrased) 20mph will significantly increase journey times, and I can assure you that not everyone wants this. 20mph is a sensible personal judgement around parked cars, but on a clear road, you have time to reduce your speed 10mph by breaking. 30mph is the correct legal limit. I would also add that if more parents walked their children to school, they would learn better road sense there would be fewer parked cars around the schools to see around. I also later added.... Who exactly is leading this campaign? It's not stated. Let me correct a factual error: If your worry is congestion, slower speeds actually improve a road\'s ability to carry more traffic FALSE. In fact, while it\'s true that motorways carry more traffic at 50 than at 70 mph, slower is not always better. There is an optimum speed, which for dual carriageways is (I think) around 45 mph. It should be obvious that slower is not always better for congestion - consider the extreme of 1mph. Would we get more traffic through? 20mph will increase journey times by 50% and increase congestion, particularly at lights, where fewer cars will get through in each sequence. BTW - Hi Luke! Greg Harewood

On 27/10/08 at 11:56am Denis Payne wrote: The AA has some comments on this - and if CO2/global warming is the biggest problem, then this www.theaa.com/public_affairs/news/20mph-roads-emissions.html may be very relevant. Of course, if we also reduced car usage at the same time as reducing speeds (and acceleration) then we'd have a win-win situation.

On 03/11/08 at 2:55pm Sara Randall wrote: The statistics about safety are extremely clear: slower is better. Better still is walking, cycling or public transport. The arguments about slower speeds clogging up the village are spurious: at the times when the village is clogged up no cars are going at even 20mph. The issue is much more one of safety when the roads are not clogged up. To those who argue that a lower speed limit will significantly increse journey times: given that from one end to the other Histon and Impington is, at most, 2 miles - this would take 6 minutes at 20mph, 4 minutes at 30mph and 3 minutes at 40mph. 3 minutes (the difference between 40 and 20mph) cannot be clasified as a 'significant increase'. If someone really can't bear the thought of an extra three minutes in their car then maybe they can be persuaded to cycle instead. Provided one is not surrounded by speeding maniacs, three minutes on a bicycle can be a very pleasant (and healthy) way of living.

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