Haarlem’s transition to 30 km/h streets – This is how they did it

On the 1st of October, Haarlem are lowering the speed limit for 132 roads in the city. These include all the roads where bikes and cars share the road. Lower speed limits lead to a more enjoyable and safer environment for all road users, especially pedestrians and cyclists.  

We sat down with Jacinta Peerlkamp-Steltenpool and Gerrit Faber, both policy advisors at Gemeente Haarlem and experts on traffic safety and bicycles, about about the change and how they made it happen.

Why is speed management important for a city like Haarlem? 

The main thing is liveability and safety. It should be more normal to create spaces for pedestrians and cyclists. 30 kilometres an hour is a logical step to achieve these goals.  

It’s a discussion that’s happening in many cities across the Netherlands; Amsterdam lowered the speed on 80% of its roads in 2023, with positive results. However, from a traffic management point of view, it’s not as simple as just putting some signs up in the city. 

Lowering the speed limit is one piece of the puzzle. The bigger picture is giving the space in the city to slower traffic, such as bikes and pedestrians. This caters for small movements in the city rather than travelling through the city to another destination. 

Are bus routes the biggest challenge for 30 km/h streets? 

When we introduced 30km/h as the new norm in 2021, we said that we wouldn’t use it where there is high frequency public transport. Now, four years later, we are even reducing the speed on some very important bus routes. 

Every time we want to reduce the speed, the bus company and the province bring up the challenge that buses go slower, meaning that they would need more buses to provide the same service. However, the streets where those buses drive are where we have most problems with traffic safety.  

Nowadays I think everybody is getting used to it. The buses will not even be a lot slower than they were, because most of the time they are waiting for traffic lights or picking up passengers. The biggest slowdowns for buses are not where they reduce from 50 to 30. Delay comes from traffic lights. We are working hard on this subject to reduce this as much as possible. Smoother flow here would be proof that 30 km/h streets work. 

In October you’re transitioning 100+ roads to 30 km/h. How do you choose which roads? 

We made a transition plan for all the roads which are still 50 kilometres an hour. All 50km/h roads with no separate bicycle lanes will be slowed. When the situation isn’t perfect for 50, we begin with 30. 

It’s not just the signs. It’s also the street layout, the feeling of the street. In an ideal world, we would reconstruct most of the streets in Haarlem, but that’s impossible. It would take 40 years. We didn’t want to be that slow, so we chose streets where it makes sense. 

We keep a few streets at 50. You don’t want patchwork: 30 and then 50 and then 30. It should be a logical network. Our policy book shows step by step which streets will be 30 or 50. Then we take small measures to make the 30 more effective. With new reconstructions we make it a true 30-kilometre street. The Professor Eijkmanlaan is a good example where you see all the dilemmas. Should there be a separate cycle path or not? Some say no, others say yes. Many more aspects of safety play a role. 

Have you already seen impacts where roads switched from 50 to 30? 

Only where we really changed the design. Where we just put the signs, traffic didn’t really slow down. Maybe one or two kilometres an hour. We hope when we do a lot of streets at once, combining it with communication, it helps more. 

Some years ago I was in Austria and they made the cycle street with the 30 sign and nothing else was done. They were very proud because from that day on nobody drove more than 30 anymore. I was astonished. It wouldn’t work here. 

Amsterdam recently got speed cameras, but that isn’t possible on every street. Enforcement still has long way to go but this is changing step by step. 

How does the October transition work logistically? 

Amsterdam did it in one night. We only have about 600 signs. We expect to put them in the weeks before, with a sticker saying, ‘From 1st of October this road is 30 kilometres an hour.’ On October 1st, we will take the sticker off. 

It doesn’t really matter if it’s midnight or 10 in the morning. Somewhere on the 1st of October the sticker gets taken off and then the speed limit becomes 30. 

We also have a communications campaign. All people living along a road which will change get a letter at home. Besides that, we are active on social media and will put up posters. But the two most important are the letters and the stickers. 

What other plans does Haarlem have to improve cycling and walking? 

When we reconstruct a street, pedestrians and cyclists have become a big priority now. It’s not possible to make all streets better at once, so we combine it with other roadworks. We are making a bicycle ring around the city centre so through-cyclists don’t conflict with pedestrians. We also make doorfietsroutes (through cycling routes, connecting cities). This helps connect different plans, step by step, with the province and neighbouring municipalities.