Transport for London (TfL) has announced that it will be expanding its 20mph-limited road network by another 40 miles.
The signage is expected to be erected by the end of December. The zones will impact motorists and residents in Bromley, Chelsea, Greenwich, Kensington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwick and Wandsworth.
With this expansion, 86 miles of London’s roads will be limited to 20mph by year’s end, ahead of the project’s target completion date of May 2024.
The plan is a key component of Mayor Sadiq Kahn’s Vision Zero policy, the end goal of which is to reduce the numbers of fatalities and serious injuries on London’s roads to 0 by 2041.
The limit was imposed in central London in March 2020; since then zones were established in Camden, Haringey, Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets.
As for the efficacy of the of the project so far, data collected from 1st May 2020 to 30th June 2022 suggests the number of collisions fell by 25%, and the number of serious injuries on the roads by 24%. This was compared with seasonally-matched data from prior to the implementation of the 20mph zone in the original boundaries of the ULEZ, covering 1st May to 30th June 2017, and 1st December 2017 to 30th November 2019.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police is on course to meet is own target set by the TfL. In 2022/23, the Met enforced 620,000 speeding offences, representing an increase of 35% on the previous year.
Maps of the zones can be viewed on TfL’s dedicated webpage.
