What have Greens done?

Twenty’s plenty

   

Enfield Green Party want a Borough wide default 20mph speed limit on all residential roads. This would result in less deaths and serious injuries and make our streets more pedestrian friendly. Consider this. If hit by a car travelling at 40mph you have a 9 in 10 chance of being killed – not good odds, if hit by a car travelling at 20mph you have a 1 in 10 chance of being killed.

SO WE SAY 20'S PLENTY

Now, all speed limits need enforcing. We want appropriate signage and average speed cameras to do this. And of course the best solution would be a London wide 20mph speed limit on all residential roads. And we’d also like some streets turned into parks with benches and trees and safe areas for children to play. No access except for residents and essential deliveries.

There is of course a context for all this. We really do need to move away from car usage as it’s developed over recent decades. Let’s have less cars and where car ownership persists let’s use these cars less – get that annual mileage down. And we need cars which are kinder to the environment – let’s move to hybrids, electric cars and the hydrogen fuel cell.

This is obviously a process and won’t happen overnight but we need to move as quickly as possible to bring down CO2 emissions and help prevent global warming. We can look forward to reclaiming the streets for people, enjoying local activities, walking or cycling to work and local shops and generally creating a better sense of wellbeing with reduced crime and more emphasis on what really matters, good relations with neighbours and other people in our locality.

So 20’s PLENTY is... yes... about saving lives but it is also about a shift away from the car to a much better lifestyle, more in keeping with looking after the planet and enhancing the quality of life for everyone.

For more information go here for a London Assembly paper on the issue and here focuses on Portsmouth and the 20mph limit introduced there.