Engineers and Planners responded with…  Traffic Calming  Context Sensitive Design

Learning from History: The old way Traffic calming adds some new tricks to our bag of design options but…. We can learn a lot about designing good roads by looking at the old way of design

the old way 1. Roads fitted the context

Traffic Calming Contribute to livability and multimodal transportation by limiting speed and/or volume of vehicular traffic And to our health according to the USA Today….

Bicycling Commuting and Traffic Calming Very few people commute by bikes in the USA…

Bicycling Commuting and Traffic Calming … except in a few places with the facilities

Bicycle Safety and Traffic Calming …. the rate of fatality per trip in USA is very high

Pedestrian Safety and Traffic Calming Percentage of Pedestrians Killed Doubles for Each 5 mph Increase in Speed (USDOT – National Highway Safety Administration,1999)

Traffic Calming Measures  vertical deflection (speed humps, raised pedestrian crosswalks and intersections)  narrow traffic lanes  small turning radii at intersections  extensions to the pedestrian realm (raised crosswalks and intersections and curb extensions)  chicanes  roundabouts and traffic circle  Diverters and Closures  bike lanes and bike boulevards

Vertical Deflection

Portland DOT Speed Study 14 ft Bumps

Portland DOT Speed Study 22 ft Bumps

Narrow Traffic Lanes Portland, Or

Narrow Traffic Lanes West Hartford

Extensions to the Pedestrian Realm Trinity College, Hartford

Extensions to the Pedestrian Realm Portland, Or

Extensions to the Pedestrian Realm Durham, New Hampshire

Chicane

Traffic Circle

Diverter Berkeley, California

Bike Boulevard Berkeley, California

Traffic Calming Design for Emergency Vehicles Two of the main traffic calming devices potentially affecting emergency vehicle operations are bumps and traffic circles. Portland (Oregon) DOT has done extensive research on emergency vehicles and traffic calming.

Emergency Vehicles and Traffic Calming Traffic calming slows down all vehicles including emergency response vehicles – this is a potential problem when there is an extensive system of traffic calming devices. However, it should be pointed out that a properly designed network should compensate for lower speeds because routes are generally shorter.

Traffic Calming Design for Emergency Vehicles Changes that have been made in the Portland traffic calming regulations to better accommodate emergency vehicles  Add ‘emergency response route’ to road types in Portland DOT functional classification  Split (or offset) bump Another good site for traffic calming and emergency vehicles