Jim Cameron, a Darien, Connecticut, resident who writes the syndicated "Talking Transportation" column, argues that traffic-calming street designs do not stop drivers from cutting through residential neighborhoods but redistribute the traffic. In the column, he writes that the techniques work only if major arterial roads can be kept flowing, and that otherwise cities are "just playing whack-a-mole with traffic."
Columnist Jim Cameron says traffic calming shifts congestion rather than removing it
Jim Cameron, a Darien, Connecticut, resident who writes the syndicated "Talking Transportation" column, argues that traffic-calming street designs do not stop drivers from cutting through residential neighborhoods but redistribute the traffic. In the column, he writes that the techniques work only if major arterial roads can be kept flowing, and that otherwise cities are "just playing whack-a-mole with traffic."
Cameron writes that bumper stickers reading "Slow down in town" are a nice thought and completely useless, and asks why drivers seek to travel as fast as traffic allows while becoming what he calls "traffic calming zealots" once they are in their own neighborhoods. He writes that local neighborhoods are increasingly serving as shortcuts for GPS apps such as Waze that route drivers around clogged arterial streets.
He lists designs he attributes to traffic engineers under the term "traffic calming." Speed tables, he writes, are extended speed bumps with a six-foot ramp up, a 10-foot flat table and a six-foot ramp down. Roundabouts are small traffic circles with landscaping in the center that slow drivers as they go around. Chicanes are alternating curves or S-shaped shifts in a roadway that force drivers to steer back and forth, interrupt sight lines, narrow the travel path and slow motorists. Bulb-outs, or neck-downs, are extensions of the sidewalk into parking areas at corner crossings.
He also lists sidewalks, which he writes get pedestrians out of traffic and encourage walking, and which he says are not for bicycles; crosswalks, which he writes give pedestrians the right of way over cars, sometimes mid-block and without stop signs or red lights, if motorists observe them; and roadblocks and mazes, which he writes were inspired by anti-crime efforts in neighborhoods with drug dealing, making it hard for drive-through buyers to find their way in and out while residents know how to maneuver the maze.
Cameron writes that all of these techniques assume the major arterials where cars belong can be kept flowing. If they cannot, he writes, traffic is beaten back from the arterials into the neighborhoods, which then become cut-through routes, and he concludes: "Turns out you can't engineer your way out of bad urban planning. You can only shuffle the misery around."
- The source does not state a publication date or a date on which the column was written.
- The source does not cite traffic data, speed measurements or studies on the effectiveness of any of the designs it lists.
- The source does not name a specific street, neighborhood or municipality where any of the described designs was installed, or where cut-through traffic has increased.
- The source does not state whether the views expressed are those of the author alone or of the Darien RTM, Darien TV79, the Commuter Action Group or any other body with which the author is affiliated.
- The source does not state which newspapers carry the column beyond the mention that it runs in several newspapers and in Greenwich Free Press.
Read the original at Greenwich Free Press