As road deaths increase and cycle lanes overflow with e-bikes, the Netherlands is considering a cycling speed limit of 12mph (20km/h).
The government has started a two-week trial in Houten, near Utrecht, to gauge whether freedom-loving Dutch cyclists are willing to slow down – and whether they have any idea how fast they are going in the first place.
20km/h is just too slow though. It turns transportation infrastructure that is quite useable on 20+ km journeys and turns it into infrastructure really only usable for short trips.
Also if you were to trying to get somewhere fast with a 20km/h speed limit that you abide by your effort would esentially be a lot of short sprints up to speed and a bunch of trundling in between, imo maybe the most annoying way to ride a bike.
I could see like 30km/h city and 40km/h country or something like this but 20 is just too low.
A 20km/h limit makes an average of ~ 20km/h impossible and i’d recon most long bike commutes find around a 20km/h average to be quite comfortable, but a 20km/h average even on flat terrain requires stints well past 20 to make up for lights and such. If it gets hilly this limit gets even more ridicoulous, depending on the grade the bike rolls way faster than 20.