By Kathleen St. Germain
Traffic calming. Road diets. Complete streets. Vision zero. All these terms refer to policies whose goal is to reduce automobile speeds by narrowing or removing vehicle lanes and increasing congestion. Cities say they are adopting these programs to increase safety for all users of the street, yet they have no evidence that the policies will actually reduce pedestrian, cyclist, and other traffic-related deaths.
Click image to download a four-page PDF of this policy brief.
When confronted with facts showing that many of the design changes in their plans may result or have resulted in increased accidents, they either turn a blind eye or address their concerns for potential liability by imposing more heavy-handed solutions for delay-inducing schemes. The answer to unraveling the confusion in the new designs of “traffic calming” is to create separate signalization for vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists, delaying drivers even more, but for which, only drivers will be held accountable with fines. Continue reading
