Communities finding ways to brake zip-through drivers
From East Coast to West, 'traffic calming' is helping to slow the
fast flow of commuters and other drivers through residential streets. Neighbors and city
officials are 'trying to undo the traffic chaos created in the 1960s.'
Neighborhoods
declare war on traffic
SARASOTA, Fla.
Tired of stop-and-go traffic, the time-pressed commuter tries a short cut through
neighborhoods on streets that aren't as busy.
Big mistake.
Shade Avenue's first speed hump rises just north of Hibiscus amid a sea of brake
lights. Slosh goes the coffee. Six more car-jarring humps follow in just the next mile.
Doughnuts thump to the floor.
Fleeing onto Hyde Park Street, the driver finds a side-jutting concrete islet that
narrows the street and forces cars to pass one by one. Next, cars are diverted around two
center medians before encountering a final, maddening islet.
Welcome to the Florida Gulf Coast city that is ground zero in a national battle pitting
testy commuters and increasingly aggressive drivers against residents who want slower
traffic on safer, more walkable neighborhood streets. From Sarasota to Seattle, cities are
touting "traffic calming" as a way to end the mad rush of cars racing 40 mph and
faster down residential streets. As stressed-out commuters and combative drivers roar
through the neighborhoods to avoid clogged main roads, residents are taking up the fight.
Call it the biggest change in suburban driving since cul-de-sacs came in vogue in 1929.
Streets once designed to move cars in and out of neighborhoods as quickly as possible are
being redesigned today so they can be shared by pedestrians, bicycles and pets.
"It's a whole change in mindset. We thought bigger was better, and faster was
better, and now we don't," says Reid Ewing, an urban planning professor at Florida
International University in Miami.
U-turn in philosophy
Transportation experts see traffic calming as a U-turn in engineering philosophy. The
basic theory is to change straight streets into obstacle courses that dramatically slow
traffic.
Speed humps and elevated speed tables force cars to slow or suffer abrupt jolts.
Traffic circles at intersections impede straight and quick throughways. Curbs and
sidewalks that jut into streets force motorists to yield to each other and pass one at a
time.
"We're trying to undo the trafficc chaos created in the 1960s, when engineers were
transforming every city street into a mass arterial roadway with no parking,"
Milwaukee Mayor John Nordquist says.
Long popular in Europe, traffic calming in this country sprouted on the West Coast and
is spreading eastward rapidly. The momentum stems from 6,000 pedestrian traffic fatalities
a year. Fifty-five percent take place in neighborhoods.
Just look around:
- Seattle may have more miniature traffic circles, at least 610, than any other city.
Seventy more go in this year.
City officials say the circles have reduced traffic accidents by more than 90% where they
have been built. One review of 30 circles found 50 accidents before installation in 1991
and only two accidents after.
Seattle also has built deceptive "chicanes" on a dozen busy streets. Twelve more
are going in this year. Chicanes alternate parking and landscaping from one side of the
street to the other, so drivers see a zigzagged road rather than a clear, straight path.
- Portland, Ore., residents are clamoring for traffic circles, speed humps and curb
extensions. The waiting list is 500 streets long.
Transportation planners say the most effective use of traffic calmers is to place them
areawide. Otherwise, speeding problems are just diverted from one street to another.
- Austin, Texas, officials brought in Florida transportation engineer Michael Wallwork to
redesign four-lane streets that border neighborhoods.
Wallwork's philosophy: Narrow the intersections so drivers have to reduce speeds.
Traffic calmers may be an "annoyance, but when your child gets killed, you're going
to demand the city do something," Wallwork says.
- Engineers in Cambridge, Mass., are reducing a mile of busy Massachusetts Avenue from
four lanes to three by widening sidewalks, installing bike lanes and extending curbs. This
spring, the city will spend $250,000 to build raised crosswalks and landscaped traffic
islands that divert traffic and slow it down.
Here in Sarasota, engineers can barely keep up with demand for traffic calmers.
Thirty-five thousand motorists a day travel to jobs downtown. To shave five to 10 minutes
off trips, drivers cut through neighborhoods of multimillion dollar Mediterranean homes
with bayfront views.
As a result, harried homeowners have fought to have as many as 80 traffic calmers built
in their beach resort town since 1990. Twenty-four more will go in this year.
Speed humps are the traffic calmners, most in demand here, as they are across the
nation. Not as teeth-rattling as speed bumps found in parking lots, humps rise 3-4 inches
above street level and typically are 12 feet long.
Carol Ostling waged a three-year battle to get humps installed on her street after
speeding cars killed the family's two cats and nearly plowed down her husband, Robert. He
was in his own front yard when a driver sailed onto the lawn, braking just inches from
him.
"It was an absolute nightmare," Carol Ostling recalls. "Every other week
there was a fender bender. Something had to be done." At times, she says, she felt
like screaming, "Don't drive like it's the Indy 500!"
The Ostlings attended endless meetings, made phone calls and circulated petitions
because 60% of their neighbors had to agree to the humps.
Since the humps were installed in 1994, traffic has dropped by nearly 50%, to 3,700
cars a day. Speeds have fallen about 10 mph, to 28 mph. The posted speed is 25 mph.
Speed Bump Capital
But the transition isn't always smooth. Last fall, hundreds of frustrated drivers
responded when radio station WSRZ-FM organized a "Honk if You Hate Speed Humps,"
campaign and awarded free front-end alignments to winners in call-in contests.
"We had a lot of fun with it: Sarasota, the Speed Bump Capital of the World,"
says disc jockey David Jones.
Sarasota Fire Capt. Chuck Johnston feared that tragic obstacles would add critical
delay to fire and rescue response.
"For somebody who is having a heart attack, we need to be there by four to six
minutes," Johnston says. But offcials have found that rescues take only a few seconds
more even when the route has traffic calmers.
Government officials also needn't have feared that traffic calmers might somehow
contribute to injuries to motorists or pedestrians and result in a slew of lawsuits.
Studies show that pedestrians have an 85% chance of surviving if they're hit by a car
going under 18 mph. They have the same chance of being killed if the car is traveling at
speeds above 35 mph. Severe injury is unlikely in between.
"If we could put up a sign that said 'Please respect our neighborhood and drive
slowly,' we wouldn't have to install any devices at all," former Sarasota mayor
Mollie Cardamone says. She lost two dogs to speeders. "But the reality is people have
become more and more uncivil."
Humps, bends and barriers are being built on neighborhood streets across the USA to
slow or reduce traffic flow. The devices vary in type, size and shape.
Some examples of the growing trend toward 'traffic calmers:'
Chicanes
Street parking or landscaping alternates from one side of the street to the other so the
driver sees a zigzagged road rather than a clear, straight path. These abrupt changes
cause motorists to reduce speed. In Seattle, which has them on 12 busy streets, chicanes
force motorists to slow to about 20 mph.
Cost: About $13,000.
Neckdowns
Neckdowns are sidewalks and curbing that extend into the roadway to shorten the pedestrian
crossing. They also narrow the width of the road for vehicles forcing drivers to slow
down.
Cost: $2,000-$3,000.
Bulbouts
Bulbouts, also called neckouts, are curbs that jut into the street to narrow the roadway
and slow traffic. In Sarasota, Fla., the devices allow one car through at a time and are
lanscaped with ground cover and crape myrtle shrubs. Yield signs force opposing traffic to
wait, and speed signs warn motorists to slow to 15 mph.
Cost: About $5,500.
Speed tables
Flat, raised surfaces made of bright red brick extend the width of streets and go down on
both ends of the flat 'table top.' They force drivers to slow to 15-25 mph.
Cost estimate: $6,500.
Traffic circles
Seattle has 610 mini-circles, which force drivers to reduce speed to 15-20 mph to maneuver
through intersections. The 16-foot-diameter circles are landscaped with flowers, shrubs or
trees.
Cost: About $6,000.
Speed humps
Longer and flatter than speed bumps, humps are popular because they're inexpensive and
effective. Typically, these mounds of asphalt extend from curb to curb. They slow drivers
to 15-25 mph.
Cost: About $1,500.
Traffic islands
Considered much more effective than bulbouts, these oval, landscaped median devices
beautify streets and slow vehicles to 10-15 mph.
Cost: $5,000-$10,000.
- from USA Today, May 2, 1997
U.S. Department of Transportation