Default 20mph for Wales

[Bonefishblues]

So what's your plan? Vote on everything: let the people who are mildly inconvenienced vote to harm those who are more vulnerable?

(So) I don't have a plan. I'm not required to have a plan. I'm not a resident of Wales. I was pointing out that a very substantial minority was motivated to mildly protest via petition, and that its dismissal as 'noise' might be unwise. Something seems to have gone badly wrong here, I'm not close enough to have been party to how it was 'sold' and explained, but it clearly didn't go well.

(So) Do you have a plan?

I have quite a simple plan for this one, despite not living in Wales (in Oxford we were blessed with anti-LTN protestors from Wales arriving to Have Their Say, so I shall have mine!).

We all know that lots of motorists are quite selfish, and will object to plans to slow them down a bit. History is full of such causes-and-effects. There is no need to care about their petition.
One just has to accept this, and proceed with measures that are:
- for the greater good,
- will increase overall publich health, saving taxpayers money, and
- will in time prove to be very popular indeed (just like most other safety measures in Western History).

Motorists signing an online petition is not good evidence that anything

...clearly didn't go well.

Did people identify as motorists when they signed the petition?

The Welsh Government commissioned market research which showed 80% in favour in advance of its announcement, yet there was this enormous backlash - so what gave? The implementation clearly did not go well, that is abundantly clear to the casual observer via evidence way outside the petition. The benefits case was completely drowned out by the noise at launch and subsequently.

I may be that the correct strategy is indeed to ignore 'noise' and let people 'suck it up', but by and large it's a good idea to plan the change & explain the case when there are major changes to public policy of this kind, since it accelerates (swidt?) adoption and acceptance.

[mattheus]

<snip>...Motorists signing an online petition is not good evidence that anything

...clearly didn't go well.

Did people identify as motorists when they signed the petition?

The Welsh Government commissioned market research which showed 80% in favour in advance of its announcement, yet there was this enormous backlash - so what gave? The implementation clearly did not go well, that is abundantly clear to the casual observer via evidence way outside the petition. The benefits case was completely drowned out by the noise at launch and subsequently.

I may be that the correct strategy is indeed to ignore 'noise' and let people 'suck it up', but by and large it's a good idea to plan the change & explain the case when there are major changes to public policy of this kind, since it accelerates (swidt?) adoption and acceptance.

If you look at the Petition site, Hawaian scallop fishermen could sign, as long as they have email. So who knows?!?

How has it not gone well? Show me why/how this is clear?

How could they have "accelerated" the policy - it's in, it's active, it's (probably) saving lives right now! The time to debate it is now, whilst it's doing good; not during another 5 years of discussion, while people* moan**. We've seen the same thing across the alleged "War on the Motorist" - apeasement doesn't make our world any better

"major changes"? You mean drivers have to slow down a bit on some roads. Trauma.

*You know it's motorists.
**It would be nice if they actually weighed-up the benefits, but no, they just moan about the inconvenience, whilst inventing daft stories about some sick grandparent(s) who was delayed by 40 seconds on some life-saving trip.

[Bonefishblues]

I'm not sure you read my post quite carefully enough.

[mattheus]

I'm not sure you read my post quite carefully enough.

Hey-ho!

[Jdsk]

Crunch time! When the default 20mph thing was first proposed for Wales I recognised that the making or breaking of it would be in the political arena, with the voting public's reaction determining how it would fare. In a democracy, no measure can survive if the public don't want it. And now the default 20mph law, which affects about about a third of the total road network here, and most urban tarmac, is under threat as the Labour administration is showing clear signs of losing its nerve.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c060gpx8nnko

Okay, if you rarely come to Wales it doesn't affect you directly, but this is a test case for the whole of the UK. If this bombs here, it won't be tried elsewhere.

My own take on it, for what it's worth, is that it needs a bit of tweaking here and there, but mostly it has improved our roads. The talk is of rolling it back to just having 20mph beside key facilities such as schools and hospitals, as if those are the only locations where we need roads to be safer. What about housing estates? Where people live and children play.

Thanks for drawing attention to this.

Does anyone know when the results of any evaluation are expected?

Jonathan

[Bonefishblues]

Crunch time! When the default 20mph thing was first proposed for Wales I recognised that the making or breaking of it would be in the political arena, with the voting public's reaction determining how it would fare. In a democracy, no measure can survive if the public don't want it. And now the default 20mph law, which affects about about a third of the total road network here, and most urban tarmac, is under threat as the Labour administration is showing clear signs of losing its nerve.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c060gpx8nnko

Okay, if you rarely come to Wales it doesn't affect you directly, but this is a test case for the whole of the UK. If this bombs here, it won't be tried elsewhere.

My own take on it, for what it's worth, is that it needs a bit of tweaking here and there, but mostly it has improved our roads. The talk is of rolling it back to just having 20mph beside key facilities such as schools and hospitals, as if those are the only locations where we need roads to be safer. What about housing estates? Where people live and children play.

Thanks for drawing attention to this.

Does anyone know when the results of any evaluation are expected?

Jonathan

It's an astonishing situation whereby pre-announcement approval ratings for 20mph when professionally polled were 80% (survey data below), through nearly a sixth of the entire population signing a petition for its reversal, to that sort of article. It's some turn-round in a very few months.

https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/fil ... survey.pdf

I'm interested in better understanding how this came to be - such insights might help to avoid any regression, which does seem to be in the air from what we read.

[AllRides]

I’m personally really frustrated with the volte-face which screams of wanting to appease a very noisy minority and will inarguably make travelling by bike worse.

But politically, it seems a mad move. The indication is that next Tuesday they will announce a ‘listening programme’ which will let people nominate streets to go back up to 30.

If they let you nominate someone else’s home to be sped up then every injury or death from then on will be pinned on Welsh Government.

If they only let people living in areas nominate the change then who is going to vote for faster cars? And we’ll have months of mini campaigns splitting communities.

Personally I think the best move they can make is to say that if 51% of residents in a 1km area agree then it can go up. They’ll never hit that and can happily say ‘see, people like it!’

But that won’t appease the current moaners, who want to drive faster through someone else’s home. So what’s the point?

Nuts. And there’s a plan to follow Rishi’s lead and shift some Active Travel money to fill potholes so it’s all great here in Wales at the moment!

[pwa]

This is one of those stories where the politicians in charge drip feed us statements that hint at what is to come, without really making it clear. Yesterday the minister in charge of transport said something that could be interpreted as an intention to take away the 20 limits, except outside hospitals, schools and nurseries. And that would have been bonkers. Most children, when not actually in school grounds, spend most of their time at or near their homes. Housing estates have an obvious need for low speed limits. Well, today, he now seems to be including housing estates.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68859568

My hope is that any roll-back will be confined to carefully selected sections of road where the case for a 20mph limit was always a bit thin. I know of a few bits of road like that and would be happy for them to return to 30mph. But they are a few stand-out exceptions, with the great majority of the new 20mph roads feeling to me like they merit that lower limit. I hope that in their attempt to get the public back onboard the Welsh Government don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

As I said, we live in a democracy, and policies that annoy the public will bring a cost for the Welsh Government at the next election. It is normally touch-and-go whether Labour can win a majority here, and they fear that this particular policy could jeopardise their ability to implement all their other policies after the next election. They need to be seen to be listening.

[Jdsk]

...
If you look at the Petition site, Hawaian scallop fishermen could sign, as long as they have email. So who knows?!?
...

Was this one where the submitted postcode of the respondent was recorded?

And it was shown early on that many responses used an English postcode?

Jonathan

PS: I assume that properly conducted surveys are part of the official evaluation...

[Pinhead]

Wales news this morning, they are looking now with seriousness at reverting many back to 30mph, consultation is now underway.

[a.twiddler]

It would be a shame if the powers that be were to bottle out due to the election looming. Perhaps the policy was ill timed: if implemented long enough before an anticipated general election, the shouting from the usual suspects might have had time to die down and the views of those who actually benefit from it might have carried more weight.

[slowster]

From the BBC link:

Mr Skates was put in charge of transport for Wales on 21 March after Vaughan Gething succeeded Mr Drakeford.

"There is generally universal support for 20mph being targeted in areas where there are schools, built up areas like housing estates, and outside hospitals and so-forth," he told North Wales Live on Friday.

"But in many areas, routes that shouldn't have been included, were."

He said the changes will enable individual councils to revert routes back to 30mph where appropriate, adding that this will allow for "radical" changes, if that is "what people want".

I may be wrong, but it looks like this may be more a political ploy than a major change in policy. I suspect the intention is to defuse this issue as a political problem for the Welsh Labour party at national level, by turning it into a local political problem for mayors and councillors.

Devolving these decisions to local level puts mayors and councillors in the hot seat. I suspect that in many wards a majority of residents (AKA voters) will want to keep the new 20mph limits where they live. A lot of the people who drive through a particular 20mph zone and want that particular limit raised, will not be local voters, and instead only pass through the ward/area as part of their commute etc.

Those who signed the national petition and think they have won, may be about to discover that 'all politics is local'.

[Psamathe]

From the BBC link:

Mr Skates was put in charge of transport for Wales on 21 March after Vaughan Gething succeeded Mr Drakeford.

"There is generally universal support for 20mph being targeted in areas where there are schools, built up areas like housing estates, and outside hospitals and so-forth," he told North Wales Live on Friday.

"But in many areas, routes that shouldn't have been included, were."

He said the changes will enable individual councils to revert routes back to 30mph where appropriate, adding that this will allow for "radical" changes, if that is "what people want".

I may be wrong, but it looks like this may be more a political ploy than a major change in policy. I suspect the intention is to defuse this issue as a political problem for the Welsh Labour party at national level, by turning it into a local political problem for mayors and councillors.

Devolving these decisions to local level puts mayors and councillors in the hot seat. I suspect that in many wards a majority of residents (AKA voters) will want to keep the new 20mph limits where they live. A lot of the people who drive through a particular 20mph zone and want that particular limit raised, will not be local voters, and instead only pass through the ward/area as part of their commute etc.

Those who signed the national petition and think they have won, may be about to discover that 'all politics is local'.

I agree. From what I've heard reported there has always been the facility for local administrations to put roads back up to 30. The consultation seems about simplifying the procedures to change specific roads back up to 30.

Same reports I heard also commented that most people like the 20 where they live, just want to drive faster when going through other areas. If these reports are true then not much will change as local councils are elected by local people who want to keep 20 in their local area (and those people don't get a vote in the areas they want to drive through at 30).

Ian

[pwa]

From the BBC link:

Mr Skates was put in charge of transport for Wales on 21 March after Vaughan Gething succeeded Mr Drakeford.

"There is generally universal support for 20mph being targeted in areas where there are schools, built up areas like housing estates, and outside hospitals and so-forth," he told North Wales Live on Friday.

"But in many areas, routes that shouldn't have been included, were."

He said the changes will enable individual councils to revert routes back to 30mph where appropriate, adding that this will allow for "radical" changes, if that is "what people want".

I may be wrong, but it looks like this may be more a political ploy than a major change in policy. I suspect the intention is to defuse this issue as a political problem for the Welsh Labour party at national level, by turning it into a local political problem for mayors and councillors.

Devolving these decisions to local level puts mayors and councillors in the hot seat. I suspect that in many wards a majority of residents (AKA voters) will want to keep the new 20mph limits where they live. A lot of the people who drive through a particular 20mph zone and want that particular limit raised, will not be local voters, and instead only pass through the ward/area as part of their commute etc.

Those who signed the national petition and think they have won, may be about to discover that 'all politics is local'.

I agree. From what I've heard reported there has always been the facility for local administrations to put roads back up to 30. The consultation seems about simplifying the procedures to change specific roads back up to 30.

Same reports I heard also commented that most people like the 20 where they live, just want to drive faster when going through other areas. If these reports are true then not much will change as local councils are elected by local people who want to keep 20 in their local area (and those people don't get a vote in the areas they want to drive through at 30).

Ian

Just going off comments I have heard when talking to people, the disputed roads tend to be "main roads" that don't seem particularly dodgy. I think there is greater acceptance of the lower limit around housing estates and streets. So I am hopeful that any rolling back will be restricted to sections of main road that aren't particularly hazardous.

[Ron]

One Welsh Tory MP who was in favour of the 20mph and was happy to have his photo taken with the organiser of 20s Plenty has changed sides and is now rabidly opposed. He barely lets a day go by without some anti 20mph posts on Twitter, many of which err...... contain statements which some might consider to be misleading.