Why Europe Is Slowing Down
Health, safety and environmental concerns — plus the pandemic — appear to be hastening the movement to drop speed limits in the E.U. and U.K.
Traffic travels along the M60 motorway in the U.K., where a pilot project will soon be dropping speed limits.
Photographer: Anthony Devlin/BloombergThis season, numerous European countries and regions are bringing in measures to slash speeds on the roads. In November, Spain agreed to reduce the speed limit on all two-lane urban roads to 30 kilometers per hour — or less than 20 miles per hour — from the current 50 km/h — a policy that will affect 80% of Madrid’s streets. The Dutch are close on their heels, giving preliminary approval (prior to a bill) to a 30 km/h speed limit in all built-up areas. Paris, which already has a 30 km/h speed limit across 60% of its surface area, is also currently conducting a public consultation on making that limit universal throughout the city.
It’s not just urban roads that are slowing down. This September the U.K. began a pilot project on three major highways that drops the maximum speed on some sections from 70 mph to 60, a try-out for a possible nationwide limit reduction. The Netherlands has already gone yet further, introducing a 100 km/h daytime speed limit on highways in March 2020.