Traffic Calming

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Traffic calming is the slowing or reduction of motor-vehicle traffic to improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists and improve the environment for residents. Urban planners and traffic engineers have many strategies for traffic calming. Such measures are common in Australia and Europe, but less so in North America. Traffic calming was traditionally justified on the grounds of pedestrian safety and reduction of noise and local air pollution which are side effects of the traffic. However, streets have many social and recreational functions which are severely impaired by car traffic. The Livable Streets study by Donald Appleyard found that residents of streets with light traffic had, on average, three more friends and twice as many acquaintances as the people on streets with heavy traffic which were otherwise similar in dimensions, income