Welcome

This site is dedicated to the idea that a community should be planned with the interests of all of its inhabitants in mind. Since the automobile first entered mass production there has been a long-standing tradition in most American towns of designing road systems that offer the highest possible convenience to drivers, and it has come at the expense of a certain quality of life. We believe that convenience for some should not be held paramount over the safety, comfort and convenience of the entire community. People should be able to walk to their local store. Children should be able to play on the sidewalks in front of their houses. Residents and visitors should be able to enjoy a friendly stroll around downtown. These and similar qualities add up to a qualitative measure we call “livability”.

This site explores the use of traffic calming measures to increase a community's livability and make it friendlier to pedestrians, bicyclists, and anyone who happens to be adversely affected by excessive vehicular traffic. The typical direct, measurable goals of traffic calming are to decrease average vehicle speed, total vehicle traffic along a portion of road, and pedestrian delay.

Here one will find several examples of traffic calming systems in action along with results they have produced. The point is to show what has or has not worked in practice in several communities. All of the examples shown here are from cities in the western United States, most of them in California. The cities used in the examples vary from small towns to major population centers. Please use the links at the top or bottom of this page to view the examples, learn more about traffic calming, or view links to some of best traffic calming resources available on the Internet. Data on this website was collected over several years. Although efforts were made to keep current, not all data may reflect the exact status of today.

This website is based on several senior projects supervised by Eugene Jud who is a fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). The work is based on several senior projects completed at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. Faculty member Eugene Jud teaches several classes in transportation engineering, among others "Sustainable Mobility" (CE 527), which treats the subject of traffic calming and further developments of it - also abroad. Eugene Jud can be contacted

at the University:
ejud@calpoly.edu, (805) 756-1729, http://ceenve.calpoly.edu/jud

at Jud Consultants:
jud4eugene@aol.com, (805) 545-5919, http://www.judcons.com
P.O. Box 1145, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406-1145.