Will Milan succeed in becoming a 30 km per hour city?

Last January, the Milan City Council proposed the establishment of a «30 kilometers per hour speed limit in urban areas starting from January 1, 2024.» The proposal to make the Lombard capital a "30 km/h city" although yet to be approved, received immediate support from the Mobility Councilor, Arianna Censi, and could be definitively embraced in the not too distant future. In the meantime, some rules regarding heavy vehicle circulation in the city have been modified, following accidents where pedestrians were killed by such vehicles, sparking significant protests. Starting from October 1, freight vehicles weighing over 3.5 tons will not be allowed to access Area B, the limited traffic zone that covers almost the entire municipal territory of Milan unless they have installed sensors to detect the presence of pedestrians or cyclists. Another significant change concerns the cost of accessing Area C, the restricted traffic zone in the city center, which will increase from 5 to 7.5 euros. Furthermore, the municipal council has approved the proposal to pedestrianize the "Quadrilatero della Moda" area starting from 2024. «The message we want to convey to citizens is: do not enter the city center if you cannot find parking» commented Beppe Sala, who also decided to change the rules for parking in the so-called "Cerchia dei bastioni," the inner ring road that delimits the historic center area – from 8 am to 7 pm, parking will be limited to a maximum of two hours to "discourage long car stays." All these initiatives share a common goal: to transform Milan into a "30 km/h city."

"City 30" is a novelty only in Italy

The "city 30" model goes beyond just lowering the speed of circulating cars; it is a more comprehensive intervention - both infrastructural and cultural in nature. Such projects aim to improve citizens' lives and requalify the urban environment, providing more bicycle lanes and pedestrian areas - with the goal of giving back public space to pedestrians and cyclists, reducing it for motor vehicles. This is exactly what is gradually happening in Milan, which could become the second major Italian "city 30" in a not too distant future, taking inspiration from Bologna's example. The mayor of the Emilia-Romagna capital recently announced the start of the preliminary phase of a broader project, which will extend the 30 kilometers per hour speed limit to almost the entire city within 6 months.

This model is relatively new in Italy: prior to Bologna, Cesena took the lead in 1998, but with its population of less than 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Olbia (with 60,000 inhabitants) in 2021. On the other hand, in various cities around the world, including Berlin, Helsinki, Barcelona, and Paris, the "city 30" is an already well-established reality. Where it has been implemented, the "city 30" has yielded excellent results. First and foremost, it did not lead to longer travel times for motorists; on the contrary, there has been a decongestion of traffic. Moreover, the switch to this model has resulted in a decrease in road accidents. For example, in Brussels, during the first six months of experiments, accidents decreased by over 20 percentage points, and the number of road accident victims was halved, along with a reduction in noise pollution. Simultaneously, the percentage of people traveling by car decreased from 64% to 49%. In Edinburgh, on the other hand, the number of accidents dropped by 40 percentage points, injuries by over 30, and fatalities by more than 20. In the first eight months of 2022, Milan witnessed over 1200 road accidents involving mainly bicycles and electric scooters; in this ranking, the Lombard capital is far ahead, leaving Rome - in second place - with over 600 fewer accidents.

A new concept of city

In Italy, about 80% of the road, including carriageways and parking spaces, is dedicated to cars - which, however, are mostly empty and stationary most of the time, and even when they are in motion, they are often used for short trips by a single driver. Furthermore, our country ranks eighth in the European list of road casualties per capita. It is no coincidence that the rate of motorization in Italy is among the highest in Europe: there are nearly 40 million cars in circulation, meaning 67 per 100 inhabitants - 9 more than Germany, 10 more than France, and 15 more than Spain. All this has direct implications on how people experience the streets: several studies have indeed shown that a deterrent to using bicycles and walking is precisely the lack of road safety. More generally, cars - whether heavy or compact - now represent an inefficient transportation system, not only from an environmental perspective, especially in a city like Milan, which is smaller in size compared to other major European centers, and where public transportation itself works well. Yet, in the Lombard capital, there is one car registered for every two inhabitants, a significantly higher average than in European metropolises - as early as 2012, Copenhagen had just over 20 cars per 100 inhabitants. By adopting the "city 30" model in Milan, it will be possible to rebalance urban space more effectively, reducing areas dedicated to cars in favor of wider bike lanes and sidewalks, thus creating a more livable, safe, and democratic city for people who do not rely on cars for transportation. But not only that: with a "city 30," road safety improves, pollution decreases, local economies are supported - with all the benefits for neighborhoods - and the landscape becomes aesthetically more pleasing. By traveling at a slower pace, cars need less space, and this space can be repurposed to enrich the urban environment.