Traffic Calming

Issue:

Traffic Calming

No measure or regulation should be made that is deliberately designed to inconvenience and hinder the legitimate travel of responsible motorists.


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Our communities across the United States are seeing an increase in the implementation of traffic calming devices like speed humps and traffic circles. However, these devices are being adopted without proper consideration for their associated risks. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has not thoroughly examined the problems that arise from intentionally imposing vertical and horizontal deflection on vehicles and passengers, all in the name of promoting the use of these devices on city streets.

Impact on Emergencies

While these deflection devices are meant to slow down passenger vehicles, they also cause significant delays for emergency response vehicles. Their longer wheelbase, stiff suspension, and high vehicle weight, along with the sensitive equipment and injured individuals they carry, require drivers to slow down almost to a stop in order to navigate these devices safely.

Unfortunately, objections from rescue personnel regarding the delays caused by these deflection devices are often silenced. Fire chiefs, who are appointed by the city, fear professional retribution and often hesitate to voice their concerns until the risks become unbearable. It’s important to note that emergency calls are not uncommon occurrences, as shown by the City of Houston, Texas, which responds to an average of 150,000 emergency medical calls and 100,000 fire calls annually. In contrast, pedestrian deaths on local neighborhood streets are relatively rare, with a small percentage being attributed to intoxication.

Effect on Emissions

Additionally, the cumulative effect of a series of traffic calming devices is frequently overlooked. These devices cause vehicles to lose momentum, making it difficult for them to regain cruising speed between each one. Unlike traffic congestion, which occurs periodically, these deflection devices create permanent, 24-hour delays to emergency response times. A study conducted by the fire department in Austin, Texas in 1997 even showed that the travel time for ambulances transporting victims increased by up to 100% due to these devices.

City council members and transportation divisions often make the argument that the delay to emergency response caused by calming devices is a tradeoff for increased safety from speeding cars. However, they fail to properly analyze and compare the risks associated with both. An analysis conducted by scientist Ronald Bowman in Boulder, Colorado demonstrated that even a minor delay to emergency response created by calming devices poses a far greater risk to the community than speeding vehicles. The analysis showed a risk factor of 85 to 1 for an additional one minute of delay, predicted to result from the installation of all proposed devices in the City of Boulder at the time, before potentially saving one life. Similar results were observed in the City of Austin, Texas.

It is clear that deflection devices present a tradeoff between perceived safety from speeding vehicles and the real risk to citizens’ survivability due to delays in emergency response. Despite the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ (ITE) guidelines stating that humps should never be installed on emergency response routes, critical emergency response routes in various cities have these devices. This has led to temporary or permanent moratoriums on these devices in cities like Berkeley, California; Boulder, Colorado; and Portland, Maine and Oregon.

Causing Further Difficulties

Furthermore, individuals with disabilities have reported enduring pain and injury from traveling over these deflection devices in vehicles. The U.S. Access Board in Washington D.C. has received significant testimony regarding the physical and psychological barriers these devices create, hindering access to public rights-of-way.

In some cases, traffic calming devices have been installed on streets in order to separate communities along racial and socioeconomic lines. The U.S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD) identified gates installed as part of a traffic calming project in Houston, Texas as discriminatory and ordered their removal. These gates were replaced with speed humps, creating a less obvious yet similar barrier between neighborhoods.

No Evidence to Support

Despite claims that calming devices will reduce accidents, a comprehensive study commissioned by the ITE and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on traffic calming projects in the United States found limited evidence to support this. Collisions are infrequent on low volume residential streets where these devices are primarily installed, and any systematic change in collision rates is often obscured by random variations from year to year.

It is important to note that the USDOT defines traffic calming devices as geometric design features of the roadway, rather than traffic control devices. This definition has allowed local governments to make decisions regarding the proliferation of these devices on city streets. However, an increase in accidents has been observed in some cases. For example, experimental speed humps in Portland, Maine led to a 35% increase in accidents, while an experimental traffic circle in Boulder, Colorado saw accidents rise by 100%. Despite these findings, these devices remain on the streets today.

Facing these concerns, people across the United States are speaking out against the installation of these deflection devices. They argue that these devices damage vehicles, injure passengers, increase pollution and fuel consumption, and, most importantly, impede emergency response. Extensive research on traffic calming projects since 1996 has been compiled into a 400-page report on the “Problems Associated with Traffic Calming Devices.”


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