Chapter 3 - Creating a City Traffic Calming Program

Introduction

Many communities in the United States are realizing the inefficiencies and dangers of their current street systems. They are now looking into the redevelopment and reorganization of their city in order to create a safer environment that better accommodates pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit. This trend towards new urbanism and traffic calming is becoming more and more popular. These communities have begun to adopt the philosophy of "integration rather than separation" ¹ of the different modes and uses. Traffic calming can range from speed humps and traffic circles to a reduction in the number of lanes and implementation of complete street closures. In order to put these ideas into practice, communities have begun to create sets of guidelines specific to their citizens' needs and desires. Although each traffic calming program will be different, there are certain aspects that seem to be crucial in the overall success of each program. This chapter is a discussion of these crucial aspects and outlines how communities should go about in the production of their own traffic calming program. This chapter also briefly discusses how the design and construction of some common traffic calming projects and features are commonly handled.

Community Involvement and Education

The first and most important step in a specific project is community involvement and education. Without the support of the community, the project usually fails. The optimum balance of usages of modes and streets "can be achieved more effectively when the public participates in the planning process" ². The project is the application of one or more traffic calming features to improve a specific situation, while the traffic calming program is the entire set of guidelines to be followed universally for any potential project.

Defining the Problem

Citizens' observations and complaints prompt the city staff to take notice of a current or potential problem. Defining the problem is the beginning of the whole process. Using citizen input, the staff or committee must define the dominant problem, whether it is high vehicle speeds, high traffic volume, poor aesthetics or a host of other problems. Those who live and work in the immediate area are the best resources when researching these factors.

Considering Potential Solutions

Once the problem has been defined, potential solutions must be considered. The feelings of the community must be considered in the decision of the alternatives. For example, if the community is against all types of speed humps to reduce vehicle speeds, then speed humps would obviously be a poor alternative to consider. The make-up of the immediate community is also important when considering alternatives. Attitudes of the repeat users may differ if the streets in question are to be used mostly for commuting than if they are to be used mostly for residential purposes. Commuters driving along collectors and arterials are less likely to be pleased with more drastic traffic calming measures than are residents who use nearby residential streets.

The overall philosophy of the town plays a large part in the severity of the solutions. Towns that have been using traffic calming techniques for many years, where the citizens often use alternative forms of transportation, will be more likely to accept a more dramatic solution such as closing or diverting streets to vehicle traffic than will towns that are new to traffic calming and depend heavily on vehicles as the main form of transportation.

Community Feedback

Finally, once the project alternatives have been analyzed, the input and opinions of the community are necessary to make a successful final decision. If the community is pleased with the design of the preferred alternative, its success in meeting the project goals is likely. In cases where solutions to traffic problems were developed "without sufficient input from the community," a great deal of opposition was generated "which ultimately prevented the solutions from being implemented, or resulted in the solutions being removed"³.

Often city staff and design team members will hold public forums in which the general community is invited to voice their opinions on the project and the alternative solutions. During these public forums, public support will be gained if the community is a large part of the overall process. This flow of information must not stop once the project has been decided upon and built. It must continue throughout the life of the project. After construction is completed, education and awareness regarding the usage of the traffic calming devices should continue.

Using Stages to Achieve Goals

When one thinks of traffic calming, often the first thing that comes to mind is constructing speed humps. However, many communities are taking a more conservative stance, leaving the more drastic and expensive measures as a last resort. The City of Sunnyvale, California, is one such city. With the help of Hank Mohle & Associates, Sunnyvale has adopted a traffic calming program that uses two stages ⁴. By separating a traffic calming program into two or more stages many potential problems with the construction costs or public response are easily avoided. Most speeding or high vehicle volume problems can be solved with simple measures that most cities already use.

Stage One

Stage one of these programs entails focusing more on the normal activities of the Traffic Engineering staff. These activities can include:

• Increasing the public awareness and education of the dangers of excessive speeds through fliers or signs.
• Traditional enforcement by the local police or public safety department.
• Creating neighborhood speed watch programs much like neighborhood crime watch programs where local residents are loaned radar guns and registered owners of excessive speed vehicles can be sent a notice from the city.
• Using radar speed trailers to create a higher awareness of excessive speeds.
• Installation of new signs and markings after reviews of the sites under consideration.

In essence, these activities are nothing new, with the exception of the neighborhood speed watch program, and therefore the costs involved with these measures would be quite minimal in comparison to the construction of larger traffic calming devices. These measures are also more likely to be widely accepted by the daily users, since they are already common practices. Starting out with these types of "Stage One" activities can usually be "expected to satisfy about 80% of the complaints" ⁴ of excessive speeds and high traffic volumes.

Stage Two

If the simpler strategies have failed to solve the problems at hand, more drastic measures can then be considered. These would be Stage Two activities. Each community must decide what kind of Stage Two Process would work best within their own boundaries, but many established guidelines can be useful in creating this process. The City of Sunnyvale, California, uses their Stage Two program only if the following criteria have been met:

• "Stage 1 activities have failed to solve the problem(s)."
• "The speed and/or traffic volumes exceed the following limits on a local residential street: 95th percentile speed exceeds 35 mph and/or volume exceeds 1,000 vehicles per day." ⁵
• The residents in the area have been surveyed with "at least a 51% "in favor" return of conducting a study that may show that one or more or all streets in the area may be impacted by the installation of the defined Stage 2 techniques or tools" ⁵.

One should note that 85th percentile speeds are commonly used as the valid parameter, however in the study and analysis performed by Hank Mohle & Associates, the 95th percentile speed was used. In the final report to the City of Sunnyvale, they reported that "a speed statistic that may be more important than the 85th percentile characteristic of speeds on local residential streets is the 95th percentile speed characteristic. Many times, residents are more concerned about the very few, very-high-speed motorists along their street than they are with the traditional 85th percentile, or even lower, median speeds. . . . It is this excessive speed, however small in relation to the total number of vehicles using the street, that causes the neighborhood to demand that something be done to calm speeds along their street" ⁶.

Stage 2 tools may include:

• speed humps
• speed tables
• traffic circles
• curb extensions
• medians and islands
• barriers
• chicanes
• diverters
• street closures

Many other types of traffic calming tools are available, each with its own benefits and costs. These would need to be chosen on a project-by-project basis, since each project, even within the same neighborhood, will be unique. Nearly any traffic calming report or guide book will outline various traffic calming measures to assist in deciding whether or not these measures are appropriate for your own community and situation. For example, the City of Seattle's Neighborhood Planning Tool entitled Making Streets that Work, outlines numerous types of projects that will help cities to meet their goals for their streets in the section titled "Tool Kit" ⁷ and the Transportation Association of Canada presents the applicability and effectiveness as well as some design guidelines for numerous measures in their Canadian Guide to Neighbourhood Traffic Calming ⁸. Using these and other such resources is an ideal way to decide which traffic calming measures should be used in your own community.

When considering these more extreme measures and projects, the surrounding area and the street types must be analyzed and classified. The most common classifications are neighborhood residential collectors and local residential streets. Other streets to be investigated for traffic calming measures can include arterials and commuter collectors, however these are less likely to necessitate traffic calming measures. The same types of measures would be used, but each type of street classification would most likely follow different guidelines due to the different usages and types of users⁹.

Emergency Vehicle Response Considerations

While solving many problems for local residents, many types of traffic calming measures actually create more problems for emergency response vehicles. The designs that create diversions or obstacles that create lower average speeds for the everyday drivers, also forces the drivers of emergency response vehicles to slow down. This can increase response times for these services. City staff and design team members need to take into account the routes that are most often used for these services, so that they are not creating more problems while solving others. Some studies have shown that individual delays from a single traffic calming measure are short, however they are sometimes used in groups that create a relatively long delay overall which can matter in emergency situations.

Different cities have handled this problem in various ways. Many communities regard the danger to their children on the street in front of their own home to be greater than the danger of a slow emergency response time. In these cases, according to Lindy McGinnis of the Austin Fire Department, "that must be respected"¹⁰. In other cases, the emergency services are a large part of the design process, giving input on each project or by establishing routes in which the city agrees to minimize traffic calming devices¹⁰.

Bicyclists, Pedestrians, and Transit Users

Often bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit users can be overlooked in the traffic calming process. Some types of traffic calming are made to increase the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians and the usability of transit modes, but others are solely concerned with decreasing speeds while not taking other forms of transportation into account. Devices such as traffic circles can be a danger for those who choose not to drive their cars. In areas where these alternative forms of transportation are widely used, consideration must be taken to accommodate these people as well. According to Reid Ewing, "if we expect people to walk (or bike) at all, we must provide a network for them as good as for motorists" ¹¹ and "the same places must be reachable on foot or bike without jeopardizing life and limb" ¹¹.

Where these other modes are used, traffic calming devices should be analyzed for their friendliness for all forms of transportation. Bulb-outs can be created to allow bicycles to drive through them, instead of around them (see Chapter 4: Sunnyvale, California: Old San Francisco Road). Networks of shortcuts and alternative routes should be created to allow better access for bicyclists and pedestrians, especially in high automobile volume areas ¹². "Pedestrian accident rates are lower on streets with raised medians" ¹³ that improve pedestrian visibility to drivers. Special turnouts and lanes can be marked to increase usability of buses, light rails, and trolleys. Another popular and effective way to overcome these potential problems is by including bicycling clubs and organizations as well as the local transit authorities to be a part of the planning and design process.

A more detailed discussion of the effects of traffic calming on public transportation is included in Chapter 4.

Fiscal Considerations

Each community will place a different importance on fiscal impacts of traffic calming. Communities with more funding and local financial support will be more likely to try new ideas with less concern over the price tag, whereas smaller communities with less funding will try more conservative measures before going towards more drastic traffic calming measures and programs. However, with any type of community, funding for traffic calming programs needs to be assessed and allocated. Some cities pay for 100% of all projects that follow the General Plan of the city, but others will require financial assistance from residents of the nearby area under study. Many agencies that design and construct speed humps have dual funding programs in which the speed humps can be installed much sooner if paid for by the members of the neighborhood¹⁴.

When cities intend to completely finance traffic calming projects, it is suggested that "all practical and possible techniques that do not involve physical construction changes within the street should be considered and implemented on a reasonable trial basis before consideration is given to the installation of such techniques as speed humps, traffic circles, etc."¹⁴. By using trials, studies, and surveys before constructing any large device, costs can be better estimated or even avoided if the device or project is found to be ineffective.

Some cities find ways to rank the locations that have been identified as traffic problems. For example, Portland, Oregon, ranks locations by the severity of the speeding problem, then when a street nears the top of the list, the Traffic Calming staff works closely with the neighborhood residents to determine the best way to slow or divert traffic. If a location is not near the top of the list, Portland has another program that allows neighbors to pay for speed hump installations themselves. Neighborhoods that feel as if their problems would be solved by the installation of a speed hump can raise the money themselves, then the City Staff will design and construct the speed humps using the residents’ money instead of city funds¹⁵.

Other possible ways to increase safety and decrease costs is to encourage the neighborhood residents to take action, using Stage One type activities. In addition to a residential speed hump purchase program, cities can also implement education and awareness programs to encourage their residents to leave their vehicles at home and take public transit, get involved in neighborhood traffic watch programs, and write to local newspapers to spread the word¹⁶. When neighbors are more aware of speeding problems, they are more likely to voice their opinions therefore educating others. Many cities will assist residents by providing them with appropriate brochures and pamphlets to aid their neighborhood programs as well as with equipment to gauge the speeds of traffic on their street, as with the Neighborhood Traffic Watch program¹⁵.

Conclusion

Many cities are becoming more and more congested with growing populations and greater numbers of vehicles on their streets. With this congestion comes speeding and unsafe neighborhoods. By establishing traffic calming programs, cities can easily implement projects that will bring the sense of community back to their streets. Although many think that traffic calming is only speed humps, there is much more that goes into it. Establishing a set of guidelines and a city-wide Traffic Calming Program is the first and most crucial step. Many American cities with well planned traffic calming programs have been quite successful in increasing the safety of their streets. The best method to achieve a well planned traffic calming program is to research the programs of other cities and to analyze examples that have and have not worked well in achieving goals similar to those of your own city. By making use of the methods and ideas that have worked in other towns, such as Portland, Oregon, cities can adapt the main ideas to suit their own community’s needs and desires thereby easily and effectively creating safe and comfortable communities for everyone.

References

1. Council Report Summary: Traditional Neighborhood Development Street Design Guidelines, Institute of Transportation Engineers, Transportation Planning Council Committee 5P-8, 1997, 1.
2. Transit Friendly Streets: Design and Traffic Management Strategies to Support Livable Communities, Transit Cooperative Research Program, Report 33, 1998, 5.
3. Canadian Guide to Neighbourhood Traffic Calming. Transportation Association of Canada, 1998, 2-1.
4. Mohle, Hank and Associates. Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program for City of Sunnyvale: Final Report. November 1996, 10.
5. Mohle, Hank and Associates, 11.
6. Mohle, Hank and Associates, 2.
7. Making Street That Work: Neighborhood Planning Tool. City of Seattle, Washington, May 1996, 23.
8. Canadian Guide to Neighbourhood Traffic Calming, 3-1.
9. Mohle, Hank and Associates, 12.
10. Slow Down You're Going Too Fast!: The Community Guide to Traffic Calming, Public Technology, Inc., 1998, 16.
11. Ewing, Reid. Best Development Practices: Doing the Right Thing and Making Money at the Same Time. American Planning Association, Chicago, 1996, 77.
12. Ewing, Reid, 53.
13. Ewing, Reid, 53.
14. Mohle, Hank and Associates, 6.
15. Portland, Oregon, Department of Transportation, Traffic Calming Program. www.trans.ci.porttland.or.us/traffic_management/trafficcalming/

This chapter originally written by Dan Ferster, 1999, as part of a senior project.