The GP said "The simplest thing would be to just get rid of the temporary speed limit and set it to 25mph at all times. 25mph is fast enough."
The reason why the speed limit drops to 25 mph during certain times around schools is because that is when children and adolescents are traveling to or from the campus grounds. It makes sense that you would want the speed limit reduced during a period of increased chaos. But it doesn't make the same sense to keep that reduction when the school is out of session, or when classes are taking place and the attendees are almost entirely contained within the campus.
And, in real terms, no one likes dropping down to 25 mph on a road that is normally 45 mph at all times. Like it or not, most drivers are not as anti-car as the folks on HN and they absolutely will complain to the city about the low speed limit or just ignore it. At which point, they will go back to conditional 25 mph limits.
To be clear, I think the problem is having a fast road right by a school and making a world where the road next to the school is not fast really means putting the fast road somewhere that isn’t full of turnings so drivers can go quickly and without interruptions all day.
The road outside my school when I was young was a 30 but too narrow and bendy for people to drive that fast. When I was older at a larger school in a bigger town it was also a 30 I think with no speed limit changes through the day. The school was on the edge of the town and as you left the urban area it became a little wider and a 40. Outside my place of work in a big city, I’m not even sure what the speed limit is but it would certainly be unwise to attempt more than 20, but that doesn’t matter because the road is for accessing local buildings not crossing the city.
I (or my parents) didn’t choose this arrangement because of some car hatred, that’s just the way it happened to be.
One question is what happens if you reverse the status quo bias. suppose there’s a 25mph street outside a school and 3 proposals:
1. Do nothing
2. Build a fast 55mph bypass road for the traffic that wants to go from roughly one side of the school to roughly the other
3. Widen the street next to the school and increase its speed to 55mph, but only outside of school hours. Keep the turnings for the school and other buildings on the street.
Perhaps there’s some yawning cultural gap between us but option 3 seems pretty terrible to me as it looks like it does little to help the traffic or the school. But maybe it would be the only feasible thing to do and building a new road wouldn’t be an option. When I look at my schools I described above, the first went for option 2 (well the bypass was more for the slow narrow bendy streets than the school) long before I attended the school, and the second went for option 1.
But we're talking about self-driving cars. There's won't be any drivers. When I'm on the train I don't complain about the speed limit because I know fuck all about what speed is safe on that line. Same thing.
Also there shouldn't be a fast road right next to a school. It's insane that such a thing exists.
