History of Traffic Calming

Traffic calming began in the late 1960s. Angry residents of the Dutch City of Delft fought cut-through traffic by turning their streets into woonerven, or "living yards." After this came slow streets (designed to be driven at 20 mph) in the late 1970s; and then in the eighties, the application of traffic calming principles to highways where they cut through small Danish and German towns. Also in the 1980s, German and French cities began applying calming techniques to urban arteries.

In the U.S., such towns as Berkeley, CA, Seattle, WA and Eugene,OR began trying out traffic calming in the late 1960s. A 1980 traffic calming study examined national trends, exploring residential preferences related to traffic, collected performance data on speed humps, and reviewed legal issues.

Much more recently the Federal Highway Adminstration (FHWA) funded the ITE report, Traffic Calming: State of the Practice, by Reid Ewing. This report goes far beyond the 1980 study, carrying principles from residential streets to major thoroughfares, from speed humps to a toolbox of calming measures, and from simple issues to policy and procedural changes and political challenges.

(from trafficcalming.org)

What is Traffic Calming?

Traffic Calming is changing the physical environment to reduce the negative effects of motor vehicle use, alter driver behavior and improve conditions for pedestrians and other non-motorized street users.

Goals for Traffic Calming Programs

Traffic calming goals include:
Improving the quality of life in an area
Addressing the wishes and needs of the people living in or using the area for purposes other than motorized transit
Creating safe, attractive streets
Helping to reduce the negative effects of motor vehicles on an area such as pollution and sprawl
Promoting pedestrian, cycle and transit use


Traffic Calming Objectives

Achieving slow speeds for motor vehicles
Reducing collision frequency and severity,
Increasing the safety and the perception of safety for non-motorized users of the street(s),
Reducing the need for police traffic enforcement
Enhancing attractiveness of the street environment (street scaping)
Encouraging water absorption into the ground
Increasing access for all modes of transportation
Reducing cut-through motor vehicle traffic.

(Thanks for goals and objectives go to
Ian Lockwood, ITE Journal, July 1997, pg. 22.)


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This Traffic Calming Web site was developed by the Institute of Transportation Engineers with financial support from the Federal Highway Administration in the interest of information exchange. The contents should not be construed as an endorsement. The United States Government assumes no liability for its contents or use thereof.

Please note that some of the resources available on the Traffic Calming site are in large files and may take a significant amount of time to download.

An ITE/FHWA Traffic Calming CD-ROM that includes sections of this Web site is being produced to facilitate the viewing of large files. The CD will be available for purchase by the end of 1999.

Creating Pocket Parks and Placing Traffic Calms and Landscaping Medians

I. Purpose: Pocket parks and landscaped medians convert portions of unnecessarily large expanses of asphalt into landscaped areas

This accomplishes

  • Reduction in the amount of urban runoff
  • Enhancement of the beauty and charm to an area.
  • Increasing pedestrian and auto safety in an area
  • Creating locations for public art placement.
  • Fostering increased sense of community
  • Places moreland under public ownership
  • Gives neighborhoods relief from speeding cars
 

 
II. Potential sites
  • a. Sites must be free, either city owned or privately donated.
  • b. Sites can be a dedicated street not in use.
  • c. Sites can be all or part of a street in use.

III. One or more sponsoring civic groups are needed

IV. Funding sources

  • a. Community Assistance Grant Program Feb. 1, 2003
  • b. Neighborhood bonds
  • c. Willed assets
  • d. T 21 funding
  • e. Sponsoring organizations
  • f. Capital improvement projects due Feb.15, 2003

V. All planning and studies must be comprehensive in scope
   
 

VI. Process, Year 1.

  • a. Community Assistance Grant application due Feb. 1, 2003
  • b. Select and Direct a landscape architect with park and street design background to locate potential sites for landscaped medians, pocket parks and traffic calming placements
  • c. Secure feedback and acceptance from the local neighborhood.
  • d. Do a preliminary design on a few selected sites
  • e. Select one or two sites.
  • f. Estimate cost of project

VII. Process Year 2.

  • a. Apply for funding equal to estimated cost.
  • b. Manage funds and over see project through final inspection.

By Michael L. Hoag