Traffic calming
Traffic calming uses physical design and other measures to improve safety for motorists, car drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.
Traffic calming is a calque (literal translation) of the German word Verkehrsberuhigung – the term's first published use in English was in 1985 by Carmen Hass-Klau.
Engineering measures involve physically altering the road layout or appearance to actively or passively reduce traffic speeds by one of several means: Measures include speed humps, chicanes, curb extensions, modal filters, and living street and shared space type schemes.
[5] In 1999, the Netherlands had over 6000 woonerven where cyclists and pedestrians have legal priority over cars and where a motorised "walking speed" limit applies.
[6] However, some UK and Irish "traffic calming" schemes, particularly involving road narrowings, are viewed as extremely hostile and have been implicated directly in death and injury to cyclists and pedestrians.
Most devices are made of asphalt or concrete but rubber traffic calming products are emerging as an effective alternative with several advantages.
There are primarily two implementation options for the creation of traffic calming measure: capital reconstruction versus operational changes.
[14] Zones where speeds are set at 30 km/h (or 20 mph) are preferred by some[15] as they are found to be effective at reducing crashes and increasing community cohesion.
[17] An EU report on promoting walking and cycling specifies as one of its top measures comprehensive camera-based speed control using mainly movable equipment at unexpected spots.
The ideas and techniques also spread to the UK towards the end of the 1980s, and practice there was advocated by academics such as Tim Pharaoh and Carmen Hass-Klau.
In Ireland, traffic calming schemes have been implemented on national roads since 1993, typically on those with a hard shoulder, on the approach to towns and villages where the speed limit is reduced from 100 km/h to 50 or 60 km/h.
An evaluation of 91 traffic calming schemes implemented between 1997 and 2002 showed that they were successful in reducing road collisions, the number of which decreased by 13%.
