Not Just Bikes: The Wrong Way to Set Speed Limits (New Video)
Have you ever been driving down a rural highway and noticed the speed limit changing the closer you get to the next town? If you didn’t notice, we wouldn’t be surprised, since nothing about the design of the road is telling you to slow down.
What about this one: have you ever been driving down a stroad, seen one of those “Your Speed” signs, and noticed that every single car—including maybe you—is blowing past the speed limit?
Too often in North America, we think we can manage the speeds on our roads separately from the design of our roads. This is very different from how speed is managed in countries like The Netherlands. Our friend Jason Slaughter at Not Just Bikes has put together another brilliant video to demonstrate.
This is the sixth video in the Not Just Bikes Strong Towns series. You can check out the whole playlist here:
Not Just Bike’s Strong Towns Series
Introduction to Strong Towns & Financially Insolvent American Cities
The Ugly, Dangerous, and Inefficient Stroads found all over the US & Canada
The misguided way North American traffic engineers set speed limits—and how they can do it better—are addressed in the new book from Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn. Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town is available now!
Cover image via Not Just Bikes.
When trying to make a walkable and vibrant street, urban planners often think in terms of hard infrastructure like road width and crosswalks. But soft infrastructure, specifically flowers and other colorful plant life, plays an important role as well.