Traffic calming
Traffic calming is a set of strategies used by urban planners and traffic engineerss which aims to slow down automobile and truck traffic on residential streets in urban areas.The primary reasons for implementing traffic calming are increasing pedestrian safety, but there are other results of this strategy such as reduced traffic, and the associated noise and air pollution on residential streets.
Traffic calming in an English town. There are two measures here: speed bumps marked by the two reddish squares and road narrowing marked by the newly laid dark tarmac (with the three black posts).
Larger version
The displaced traffic is not totally pushed onto other routes, as some travellers begin to use other modes such as public transit, bicycles and walking to get where they are going.
Traffic calming can include the following specific techniques:
- Implementing enforced speed reduction zones for institutions such as schools and hospitals.
- Adding bicycle lanes
- Allowing parking on one or both sides of a street
- Placing speed bumps
- New stop or yield signs
- Creating one-way streets from two-way streets
- Narrowing the areas close to intersections by half a lane or more
- Redesigning intersections from traditional cross patterns to roundabouts
- Reducing the width of streets and widening sidewalks
- Creating a dead end at an intersection
- Closing of streets to create pedestrian zones
