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@DFP
There seems to be a stern group of people campaigning for 20mph speed limits for the betterment of all road users. They have some very grand contentions which I find hard to see as anything other than delusions. You can read some of these such arguments here on the "liveinhope" facebook page;
https://www.facebook.com/livein.hope.7?hc_location=stream
I once came across one of these such people at a council cycling meeting, she was so passionate that she was nearly in tears. Everyone (including myself) was cringing and ignored her being polite as possible. They seem to believe it is the ultimate solution, the holy grail of transport solutions. Which will be the saviour of all of us. They are very passionate. Seems like a cult. They get their claws around everything like cyclist deaths and exploit if for their campaign regardless of the relevancy.
I dont want to come across too negative and judgemental here, but I really struggle to get any of their concerns. They are campaigning to put a 20mph limit on part of A435 near me which is a major route into and out of the city, which has busy shopping sections on it. the most popular bus in the city runs along it every 5 minutes. The part of it that they want to cap at 20mph is one of the shopping spots which is congested throughout the day. Speeding is not a problem, most of the time it seems people are stuck crawling and stopping at all the traffic lights or getting stuck behind buses. There is no speeding problem here.
These campaigns have managed to succeed in many towns which these people are extremely proud of. By succeed I mean enforced, not succeed in creating utopia on our streets. I can only seeing it creating a nightmare. This seems to be echoed in the accounts here https://www.lfgss.com/thread104578.html
Making things even more difficult and unpleasant for road users, especially the poor drivers stuck in their boxes. For bikes to negate the congestion I imagine it contributing to, they would have to do all kinds of reckless filtering and pavement cycling, or join in the drudgery of a 20mph max speed. No more whizzing away when the traffic eases up, no more cruising down short urban descents at 30mph.
Just why?