LIVABLE URBAN STREETS: MANAGING AUTO TRAFFIC IN NEIGHBORHOODS

This study reports the effects of auto traffic on street life and residential neighborhoods, evaluates efforts to manage traffic in residential neighborhoods, and proposes methods for carrying out and evaluating traffic management plans. The study first reports on about 500 home interviews taken in san francisco on residential streets with varying volumes, compositions, and types of traffic. Some reactions reported include the following: (1) heavy traffic caused many people to move away from a street; (2) people who remained on a street with heavy traffic adapted through withdrawal from their yards and even from the fronts of their houses; (3) even on lightly traveled streets traffic safety was seen as a problem, but it was the occasional fast car rather than the continual traffic; (4) lightly traveled streets were occupied by more families, owners, and long term residents than more heavily traveled streets. Following this section are descriptions of pioneering traffic management programs in three london boroughs, other international efforts to protect neighborhoods, and similar efforts in the san francisco bay area. The final section summarizes traffic impacts and proposes a process of analysis, alternatives evaluation, and experimentation that can be undertaken by a city wishing to make its streets and neighborhoods more liveable (a).