Agenda item

Report of Director of Built Environment

The Board received the report of the Director of the Built Environment which advocated the adoption of a 20mph speed limit in all City streets, including those managed by Transport for London.

Members were informed that casualty figures in the City had shown a steady increase over the last three years with some 423 casualties in 2012 including 57 killed or seriously injured (KSI). This was despite continuation of our traditional

programme of road safety measures. The reason for the increase was that

the nature of the usage of City streets is changing. There had been a

dramatic rise in the numbers of cyclists and pedestrians, and with the

advent of Crossrail increasing the number of pedestrians and the

encouragement of cycling generally, these numbers wold only increase.

Compared with the rest of London, in the City these groups were

disproportionately highly represented in the casualty statistics. The

situation could therefore only get worse unless action was taken.

The strategy to reverse the rising casualty numbers is the recently

adopted Road Danger Reduction Plan (RDRP). This set out a whole

range of measures to be undertaken between now and 2020. All of

these had different cost to benefit ratios. The City was already doing the

more straightforward things, with an innovative education, training and

publicity programme (ETP); minor junction improvements; driver

behaviour and vehicle improvement programmes; and even some major

junction improvements, like at Holborn Circus, where the City were spending

£3M on what was our worst casualty location. The City also delivered

schemes like Cheapside, where there had been an average speed

reduction of over 4 mph (and no collisions resulting in casualties),

through narrowing the carriageway. However, measures like these took time

and to achieve City-wide results would be prohibitively expensive.

Officers stated that the main findings of the study included:

• Traffic speeds would be reduced by the introduction of a 20mph limit

• The often-quoted low average speeds within the City mask both streets

where average speeds were over 20mph and also peak traffic speeds at

various times such as evenings and weekends. Secondary benefits such

as reduced pollution and health improvements through modal shift to

cycling were likely to occur.

• There was little or no disbenefit to introducing a 20mph speed limit and in

particular journey-time increases would be minimal given the size of the

City (typically the journey time for the longest route through the City, i.e.,

from Victoria Embankment to Byward Street, is not expected to exceed 1

minute even during free flow conditions).

• Transport for London (TfL), City of London Police (CoLP) and the World

Health Organization (WHO) supported the introduction.

Members were informed that the report had been approved at the Policy & Resources and Planning & Transportation Committee meetings. A report regarding air quality would be circulated to Members of the Board in due course. Officers agreed to provide an update on City pollution as part of the update report at the meeting in September. Members also requested further reading material such as useful internet links to be circulated to ensure an electronic library was populated for the Board’s reference.

RESOLVED: That Members agreed:-

1. Subject to the agreement of the Court of Common Council, public

notice of the City’s intention to make an order prohibiting the driving

of motor vehicles on all streets in the City of London for which the

City is the local traffic authority at more than 20mph be given

2. That any objections that are made to the making of that order be

reported to your Planning and Transportation Committee for

consideration

3. That the costs of implementing a 20mph limit be met through Local

Implementation Programme funding with approval being sought to

utilise the ‘on street parking reserve’ in the event of any shortfall.