Slowing Drivers in London

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we’ve got some good news from Tom Vanderbilt’s How We Drive blog about lower speed limits coming to London. The borough of Islington will be radically expanding the number of streets with a speed limit of only 20 miles per hour. The goal is “a 10-year target of lowering traffic deaths by a third.”

Motorists will be seeing more of this in London. (Photo: oobrien via Flickr)

As Vanderbilt writes, it’s a policy that could make a real difference — unlike the approaches used in too many American cities:

Rather than rote anti-jaywalking campaigns and the like, it’s nice to
see some sanity entering the issue of urban speed. The recently
released findings on pedestrian safety in cities, which again found
Florida hogging several of the most-dangerous spots, speak to this;
it’s not uncommon, in cities like Orlando, to see 40-mph zones in
dense, pedestrian-heavy areas.

Elsewhere around the network: The Transport Politic reports on Florida’s big plans for more rail. Boston Biker has a great guide to helping your bike survive the winter. And Copenhagenize has a nifty post about the history of Danish bicycle messenger culture:

Bike messengers in Denmark were called “svajere” and they were well
known for being cheeky and loud and for their use of “colourful
language.” Back in the 1920s and 1930s, if the “svajere” whistled a
tune you could be sure that it would be a hit.

He’s got some great pictures, too. The messengers were a stylish crew.