Renewed Commitment to Traffic Calming for Pedestrian Safety

Success of road design depends to a large extent on how safe it is for different users. Unfortunately, in most instances the definition of road users in the United States has precluded pedestrians and bicyclists. Safety of pedestrians and bicyclists is most often relegated to a marginal status in many parts of the urban areas. The roads in the past few decades, with a few exceptions, were built for speed, ensuring maximum convenience to drivers, but, intimidating the green modes (pedestrians and bicyclists). Traffic calming is one way of reclaiming the roads for a more equitable use by different users. Many European countries have been successful in giving back the road to the pedestrians and bicyclists by implementing areawide traffic management and speed-reduction measures. The United States, however, is far behind these countries in actual implementation of such concepts, although thinking on these lines had started as early as the 1960s. There is a strong argument in favor of traffic calming in the United States based on facts and figures on accidents, road conditions, and driver behavior. In addition, field research in some European countries reveals the positive attributes of these planning principles and designs.