I think the biggest and most important impact of this is safety actually. Survival chances from a 30km/h crash are significantly higher than at 50km/h. Crashes also simply happen much less because of a shorter stopping distance. Another thing is that at 30km/h you have much lower noise levels which is imo a public health issue that is very much undervalued. Also wear on the road surface decreases which makes for longer periods of time without construction.
One of the considerations was cars getting bigger and heavier, making changes for bad accidents with pedestrians and cyclists higher. To compensate, speed is brought down to even things out. That push for large SUVs has some downsides.
I think the biggest and most important impact of this is safety actually. Survival chances from a 30km/h crash are significantly higher than at 50km/h. Crashes also simply happen much less because of a shorter stopping distance. Another thing is that at 30km/h you have much lower noise levels which is imo a public health issue that is very much undervalued. Also wear on the road surface decreases which makes for longer periods of time without construction.
One of the considerations was cars getting bigger and heavier, making changes for bad accidents with pedestrians and cyclists higher. To compensate, speed is brought down to even things out. That push for large SUVs has some downsides.