Brussels’s city-wide 30 km/h speed limit could harm its climate policy
Thursday 10 December 2020
From 1 January 2021, Brussels will implement a regional 30 km/h speed limit on most of its roads. This follows a series of green mobility policies aiming to reduce the number of cars on the city’s streets. However, the PR and message behind this latest decision could be detrimental to Brussels’s broader climate policy.
The green wave embarked on by city planners is certainly welcome. Pedestrianising streets, installing new bike lanes and temporarily removing traffic from the city’s main park contributed to all-round friendlier neighbourhoods. Gardenless residents have been given a breath of fresh air and people have taken to using more sustainable mobility.
Not everyone is pleased though, with commuters and residents not taking to the new diversions. And this opposition is set to worsen with the latest decision to implement a 30 km/h speed limit on the majority of the city’s roads. The policy’s ambitions are admirable: City 30, as it’s known, aims to decrease noise pollution, reduce carbon emissions and make roads safer. To do so, 85% of roads will be subject to the new speed restriction to the dissatisfaction of many.
In practice, this city-wide speed limit will hardly be felt by car users. Notwithstanding the crawling traffic at rush hour, 60% of the capital’s streets are already limited to 30 km/h. Meaning that only a few roads will be subject to change under this new policy. In other words, City 30 is a PR policy aimed at greening Brussels’s image.
The policy is being positioned as a widespread adjustment to the city’s mobility, a communication strategy which may prove counterproductive in the long run as the adherence to future environmentally friendly policymaking gets tougher.
In 2018, Brussels became a Low Emission Zone, with over polluting vehicles such as older diesel cars seeing their access restricted. Some have proposed to go a step further with the SmartMove toll system, which would charge vehicle users a fixed toll supplemented with a toll for every kilometre travelled in the capital. Such a tax could be spent towards environmental protection, but the likelihood of it seeing daylight is dwindling.
In short, the 2019 elections saw voters make their intentions clear: give greater attention to ecology and climate action. But for this to take shape, effort should be better placed on bringing about effective environmental policies rather than chasing easy ‘wins’.
