Road Safety Month 2023: A Brief Note on Traffic Calming

 

The birth of traffic calming dates back to the 1960s when car ownership and car use increased significantly (Jhasz & Koren, 2016). Road congestion became a constant problem in most cities especially in Western Europe. It began as a grassroots movement. Angry Dutch residents took back their space used for roads and spread obstacles to force cars to maneuver through the area at a much slower pace. They turned streets into “woonerven” or “living yards”. This idea was to show that the space should be shared by residents and vehicles. The government took note and over the next decade they endorsed the idea.  Laws and regulations were changed to permit “woonerven” designs in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, France, Japan, Israel, Austria, and Switzerland. By 1990, there were more than 3,500 shared streets in the Netherlands and Germany, 300 in Japan, and 600 in Israel. (Traffic Calming: State of the Practice)

The primary function of traffic calming measures became to shield residential areas from being exposed to traffic. Countries such as Germany and the Netherlands thought of traffic calming measures as a means to increase pedestrianisation in town centres. It was urban planners and traffic engineers in the Netherlands who emphasized that people’s well-being was not only dependent on housing but on the roadways surrounding the housing.

The idea of street traffic calming measures developed rapidly and became valued for its ability to help to keep pedestrians safer, reduce noise levels and even reduce air pollution. Traffic engineers began to merge plans and designs to ensure smooth vehicular traffic flow and include other functions of the streets such as social and recreational functions.

Today, the development of roads has modernised and incorporated the use of different materials and forms of technology to make them into what we know today. In most countries the impact of the road networks and even railways have been significant in transforming the spatial forms of land uses, the built environment and economic activities from the 19^th century to present day.

Two of the main issues arising out of the road networks in countries are speeding and safety by road users. High speeds and excessive road traffic have long been a cause for concern due to the economic costs of accidents and environmental problems especially in sensitive areas (Centre for Transportation Research and Education, 2001). Globally, road traffic injuries kill approximately 1.3 million and injure 50 million people each year and are the leading or second leading cause of death in children and young people aged 5-19 years (Hinds, 2015). Children and older people tend to be at particular risk as pedestrians. Whereas the highest mortality rates occur in developing countries, the situation in many wealthy nations, although improving, is still a major public health issue. The expected growth in road traffic challenges will experience even more serious problems which in turn produces more problems for transportation planners. Traffic calming has been seen as one of the possibilities to tackle such problems effectively. Traffic calming measures are designed, through education, enforcement and engineering, to encourage traffic to slow down in specific areas on the road.

According to Rodgers, Jones, Macey & Lyons (2009) “traffic calming has in many cases been adopted in its narrow sense, as a means of retrieving the primary purpose of roads which has been distorted by the speed and volume of traffic. Usually, the adoption of traffic calming has resulted in safer streets with gains in environmental quality and road safety as a result of lower speeds and traffic reduction, as confirmed by reports on the assessment of various schemes”.