“Traffic Calming”, after an initial and diffuse perplexity by politicians and citizens, has now entered into popular parlance and most local Highway Authorities are responding to requests to introduce it to tackle a variety of problems, real or perceived.
Now, the words traffic calming are used a lot and it is seems that many people who use them have their own view about their meaning: this can create problems, particularly when public expectation of what traffic calming can achieve is over optimistic.
Traffic calming projects have imposed, in a new technical approach to the use of street space, a change of the character of a street which, in turn, helps to encourage appropriate driving behaviour.
The essence of traffic calming lies not in the use of specific measures but in the overall objectives to create safer roads and better environmental conditions: projects with distinctive urban feature, a fundamental tenet that any scheme and any measure should be planned to fit the particular circumstances of its locations, use of not conventional techniques such as gateways, islands, chicanes, pinch points, junction treatments, mini roundabouts, road humps, speed cushions.
Europeans traffic calming managements emphasize the vital importance of monitoring all schemes. Therefore it is strongly recommended all measures to be carefully monitored to share the results; this will help others Authorities in considering similar measures and enable greater confidence to be built up about the role and performance of each type of measure.
The objective of this paper is to present an overview of the state of art of the worldwide experiences on this subject by describing characteristics, application procedures, public acceptance, results achieved. This paper will underline the importance of the choice of the materials and of specific technological devices.
Finally the paper will identify specific advices to Public Administrations willing to undertake a Traffic Calming project. |
