Transport part 2- Traffic restrictions

Downsides of the conventional approaches to attempting to reduce car use

Many road safety/environmental policies that involve tightening traffic restrictions are designed to make driving more of a chore in the hope of boring and frustrating drivers into using their cars less.  The theory runs that if people think of driving as a chore, then they will cut out their recreational car journeys, and drive only when they feel that they absolutely have to in order to get from A to B.  It is tied in with the belief that all recreational car use as "unnecessary" because "we need to work but we don't need to enjoy ourselves".

As this agenda is very unpopular with most of the general public (as John Prescott and his associates found out the hard way near the end of the 1990s) most pressure groups try to hide this particular agenda and refer to more popular agendas such as creating a more pleasant living environment for people in residential areas.  But the agenda is still very much there, it is just that campaign groups tend to try to disguise it, rather than being up-front about it like the UK Labour government was back in the John Prescott era.

This is also designed to improve safety through restricting everybody to legislate for the reckless minority, a policy which is inefficient, but will most likely succeed in improving safety significantly if taken to enough of an extreme, so it is one of those where we risk sleepwalking into larger-scale restrictions than we originally bargained for.  It is quite popular with road safety groups because as I have noted in other blogs, punishing innocent people by association with offenders is often perceived as being "hard", even though it is "hard" primarily against the wrong people.

This approach will cause far greater social costs than "merely" stopping car enthusiasts from enjoying driving.  It will threaten the custom of recreational outlets that depend on customers who travel to them as part of spontaneous car trips, especially in rural areas.  It will threaten various aspects of the car industry, particularly those which relate to making cars good to drive, and these changes risk negatively affecting the economy.  Frustrated and bored drivers may end up more prone to lapses in concentration and road rage incidents, while when traffic is heavily restricted, and the onus is placed more on drivers to allow for inconsiderate behaviour of other road users, this may lead to more risk-taking from cyclists and pedestrians, thereby offsetting safety gains.  With many people still likely to feel that they "have" to drive under these policies, quality of life will reduce if most people find travelling from A to B to be a stressful chore.  I also don't foresee it being particularly effective at reducing congestion and pollution.  In many cases, reduced car use is at least offset by increased congestion per unit amount of car use.

Beneficial use of traffic restrictions

I am convinced, though, that traffic restrictions can be beneficial to society as a whole if used selectively and in the right places for case-specific reasons, rather than as a blanket means of trying to discourage car use.

I often read that a reduction of urban speed limits to 20mph and associated traffic calming will "create a more pleasant living environment and improve quality of life for everyone".  If the speed limit cuts are carried out selectively, i.e. we get a network of residential zones with speed limits of 20mph, and a network of nearby roads with speed limits of 30 or 40mph, then it may well work that way.  In that case, traffic is encouraged to use the relatively unrestricted routes and stay out of the residential zones, and so the residential zones benefit from less traffic generally.  Some types of traffic calming relating to road design, such as cobbled streets, "shared space" (where pedestrians, drivers and cyclists share the same routes) and "filtered permeability" (where we create a wider density of pedestrian/cycle routes than routes for vehicles) can be effective at encouraging drivers to give pedestrians and cyclists higher priority within these zones.

Similar measures are also very useful in town and city centres.  Generally speaking, towns and cities tend to, by default, have large traffic densities near the centre, because that is where most attractions and job locations are held, so it is desirable to keep traffic out of some areas in order to prevent the central parts of towns and cities from becoming a large mass of gridlocked traffic.  For example, going for a leisurely shop in a city centre is generally more attractive to pedestrians if large areas of the shopping area are pedestrianised rather than adjacent to busy roads with queues of cars and buses galore.

Non-beneficial use of traffic restrictions

But, quite often, the agenda is more, by stealth, to try to get speed limits on most, or even all, urban roads reduced to 20mph or less.  Indeed, I quite often see major routes cut to 20mph, with speed bumps at regular intervals, often as a knee-jerk reaction to an incident where someone got killed by a boy racer doing 60mph in a stolen car, while the neighbouring residential zones still have 30mph limits.  In that case, saying that it will "improve quality of life for everyone" is nothing more than lies and propaganda.  If there is not a widespread network of 30mph/40mph zones nearby, there is far less of an incentive for motorists to use those roads instead of taking short-cuts through the 20mph home zones, and so while traffic speeds may reduce, traffic levels will probably not.  Too strong a blanket 20mph policy will also result in increased bus journey times outside of the busiest times of the day.

Plus, in residential areas and even on major routes, authorities are often liberal in their use of speed bumps and chicanes to calm traffic, rather than the cobbled streets/shared space type approaches that are commonly used in town and city centres.  These are not effective at improving local quality of life, as they quite often add to traffic congestion and the increased "stop-start" nature to car journeys that results tends to reduce fuel efficiency and thus increase local pollution levels.  They are often an inconvenience to cyclists as well as car drivers.  Their primary intention is not to improve local quality of life, it is to discourage car use and improve safety by restricting everybody to legislate for the minority.

While I see a case for "shared space" design in designated pedestrian/cycle-friendly zones, in which road traffic levels are typically low, I am against its use outside of those zones.  Its main advantages are that it can improve safety and encourage greater priority for cyclists and pedestrians by creating uncertainty over who has right of way, and thus reducing "risk compensation" (people are more careful because the perceived risk is higher) but the downsides are that the uncertainty can make travelling down those streets more stressful for users of all forms of transport, especially for the blind and partially sighted, and that if applied too widely (as it is effectively a way of restricting car use) they bring the usual disadvantages associated with curbing the beneficial aspects of car use as well as the negative aspects.  On relatively busy and/or high-speed routes the social downsides of "shared space" soon begin to heavily offset the benefits.

The image of children playing out in the streets

The reduction in children playing out in the streets is a problem but it is wrong to blame this squarely on traffic speeds.  Many parents are afraid of their children being mugged by child-molesters nowadays, and are afraid that if their children are allowed to slip through their fingers, they will be done for child neglect.  Back in the 1970s, traffic speeds through urban areas were not generally slower than they are today (indeed, traffic speeds have generally reduced in the past decade thanks to tightening traffic restrictions and enforcement of speed limits).  The key was that there were fewer cars around and there was less paranoia over the possibility of children being run over and/or kidnapped and abused by sexual predators.  I suggest in any case that a selective "home zones" policy would help to promote communal semi-pedestrianised residential areas that would encourage more children to play outside and would be more effective than en-masse traffic calming and 20mph zones.

Country lanes

In the UK, there is a safety problem where accident rates on country lanes have not dropped as significantly as they have in urban areas.  There is therefore a strong temptation for a "stealth" reduction of all 60mph zones from 60mph to 50mph, and then from 50mph to 40mph.  It is not uncommon to see 60mph limits cut to 40mph to legislate for idiots who race down them at 90mph in stolen cars and killed people, or to legislate for those who drive at a safe and legal 50-60mph down them but then continue at 50-60mph through nearby villages.  In some cases we have nearby minor country routes that could far more easily justify a 40mph limit, but are still at 60mph.  In a large majority of such cases, I think stronger enforcement of the existing speed limits would have been more effective at saving lives, and would have avoided penalising innocent people, but again we have the problem that punishing innocent people by association with offenders is often perceived as "hard" and failing to do so is often seen as "soft".

Country lanes are the type of roads where people traditionally get the greatest enjoyment out of driving in a safe and legal manner, and are also the lanes that often serve recreational and tourist outlets in rural areas.  I can see a widespread 40mph limit policy heavily eroding the ability for people to enjoy driving on those roads without breaking the law, and with an emphasis on longer journeys that are more of a chore, there is a risk that many motorists would skip those journeys and thus erode the custom that these tourist places need in order to justify continuing as businesses, especially in tough economic times.

I have often heard people say, "Wouldn't we all be happier if people allowed more time for their journeys and weren't always in a rush?"  There is a strong case for that argument in itself, but it is wrong to infer that this scenario will be achieved by lower speed limits.  If anything, where lower speed limits lead to increased journey times, it may well increase the extent to which people, particularly those who lead busy lives, feel pushed for time and thus stressed and in a rush.