I have a few km getting out of my city to the highway as part of my commute and then quite a few kms in the city I'm commuting to. This is a pretty typical North American experience (I'm in the Greater Vancouver area). There is no realistic transit option, my 30 minute car drive would be 2 hours on transit each way.
So let's say 10km (might be a bit more) in city traffic. 12 minutes of my commute each way [EDIT: impacted by speed limit, not counting lights, corners etc.] Total 24 minutes. That would turn into 20 minutes each way, total 40 minutes. Huge difference.
Most of this "city" driving is in streets that are plenty wide (sometimes 3 lanes each way with a separation between directions) and have minimal to no pedestrian traffic. On the smaller streets you're probably not doing 50 anyways even if that's the limit since it will feel too fast.
Vancouver has been looking at reducing speed in the city to 30km/hr. It's hard to say if it will reduce traffic deaths (maybe?) but it's going to have some pretty negative economic effects IMO. Some of the smaller streets are 30 anyways. There are probably smarter solutions but city and road planners don't seem to be able to find them.
I'm willing to bet Helsinki is denser and has much better transit.
So let's say 10km (might be a bit more) in city traffic. 12 minutes of my commute each way [EDIT: impacted by speed limit, not counting lights, corners etc.] Total 24 minutes. That would turn into 20 minutes each way, total 40 minutes. Huge difference.
Most of this "city" driving is in streets that are plenty wide (sometimes 3 lanes each way with a separation between directions) and have minimal to no pedestrian traffic. On the smaller streets you're probably not doing 50 anyways even if that's the limit since it will feel too fast.
Vancouver has been looking at reducing speed in the city to 30km/hr. It's hard to say if it will reduce traffic deaths (maybe?) but it's going to have some pretty negative economic effects IMO. Some of the smaller streets are 30 anyways. There are probably smarter solutions but city and road planners don't seem to be able to find them.
I'm willing to bet Helsinki is denser and has much better transit.