Why Surrey needs 20mph zones

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Why Surrey needs 20mph zones

How do we get more kids walking to school? First step is a blanket 20 mph limit on residential roads, says Samantha Laurie.

It’s 8.45am on a Monday morning in Molesey. A stream of parents with buggies, toddlers, scooters and kids is edging along a pavement barely a metre wide. Less than an arm’s reach away, HGVs roar along the narrow high street at 30mph, accelerating from one congestion point to the next; with no cycle lanes, bikes swerve around vans parked on the double yellows.

It’s a picture that sums up Britain’s miserably low walk-to-school rates. Over half of Britain’s parents drive their kids to a primary school less than a mile away: just one in four primary school children walk to school alone, as against 86% in 1971.

The principle reason: traffic. Molesey is no different from many places in Surrey and South-West London, where high streets have become main roads despite alternative arterial routes; where the design philosophy is simply to get traffic through as quickly as possible. In neighbouring Esher, it’s a similar tale: four lanes of traffic and no cycle lanes along a high street swollen with through traffic; pedestrians scurrying for complicated crossing points; a deafening parade of 4x4s delivering children to school.

Poor town planning has become a public health crisis, says John Ashton, President of the Faculty of Public Health, who wants to see parking impediments to the school run that would force children to walk to school instead. Those responsible for public health – now, local authorities – should focus as much on town planning as general health to combat childhood obesity, he says. And nowhere more so than in Surrey, where 25% of 10 and 11-year-olds are overweight.

But who is listening? Key to safer roads is slower traffic. You might not be able to change a narrow high street, but reducing its speed limit from 30mph to 20mph makes it seven times safer. Every cut of 1mph reduces casualties by 6%. On roads already slow because of heavy flow, it is the fear of drivers accelerating away from the congestion at 30mph that has parents picking up the car keys.

Surrey County Council, for one, is unconvinced. Recently, it set out a new speed limit policy predicated on two assumptions: that traffic can only be effectively slowed by means of humps (costly and unpopular); and that, without police enforcement, reduced speed limits will not work.

Signage alone produces an average reduction of just 1-2 mph, says the council, and is therefore only suitable for roads where traffic is already slow. But it is the maximum reduction that concerns parents, not the average: in a wide area implementation, slow roads may scarcely change, but faster roads end up slower by 5-7 mph.

Elsewhere, self-policed, sign-only 20mph limits are becoming the norm. From big cities – Croydon is the tenth London borough to opt for a blanket 20mph zone – to rural counties such as Lancashire, where the limit now applies on all residential roads, slower traffic is boosting walking and cycling, reducing casualties and making towns pleasanter places to live.

The alternative approach, of working on a street by street basis – favoured by Surrey and Richmond – has proved deeply problematic. In Twickenham, cars accelerating out of the 20mph high street into the 30mph adjoining residential streets are a constant menace.

One town that is not giving up, however, is Haslemere, where four people have been killed or seriously hurt in the past four years on a stretch of road less than a mile long. Five petitions – one with 1,000 signatories – have urged action, citing new government advice that 20mph limits are good for busier roads with potentially significant numbers of pedestrians and cyclists.

In Kingston, meanwhile, the £30m infusion of cash from Transport For London (TFL) to make the borough a cycle-friendly ‘mini-Holland’ will help to showcase a town that is genuinely addressing the needs of non-motorists.

Vision is critical – and it’s not likely to come from the top. If you reduce the speed limit and can’t enforce it, asks Surrey Council, what’s the point? But allowing the police – once famously opposed to compulsory seatbelts – to set the agenda for public health is not acceptable.

What we need is joined-up action from all who stand to gain from better high streets: cyclists, parents of the young, children of the old, even retailers – pedestrians stay longer and spend more. A liveable town is good for all.

Local Area Committees meet every three months – talk to your councillor about raising speed issues. See mycommunityrights.org.uk/neighbourhood-planning for info on drawing up a neighbourhood plan. For more guidance: livingstreets.org.uk 

For more info on 20mph see 20splenty.org