Traffic Calming is Working
Last week Urban Milwaukee released data from the City of Milwaukee documenting the initial results of traffic calming measures implemented last year. As luck would have it, the Strong Towns podcast #594 (Feb 4, 2024) covered exactly this. In the pod, Chuck Marohn speaks with Dr. Shima Hamidi of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Both of these things point to a common sense conclusion when applied to dense urban areas. The long held tradition of traffic engineers “building them wide and building them straight”, and making streets “forgiveable” to driver error, isn’t working. It simply invites higher speeds and more severe crashes.
The size of a road and its context communicates to the driver how fast they can go, speed limit signs notwithstanding. If you accept that 24/7 enforcement isn’t possible, slowing drivers down becomes a matter of narrower city streets, usually achieved with the bump outs Milwaukee area residents can observe on W. Walnut St, W. Lapham Boulevard, E. Oklahoma Avenue, and other locations.
Both the article and podcast are worth your time.