Traffic Calming Process

This chapter draws on a survey of leading jurisdictions conducted for Sacramento County in 2004. The majority of leading jurisdictions have adopted priority rating systems. Priority rating reduces political influences and increases program effectiveness in the face of public demands exceeding the supply of available funds. The chapter focuses on procedural issues and covers everything from program design to project monitoring. It is the detailed survey of US traffic calming programs since the 1997–1998 survey for TrafficCalming: State of the Practice. Staff and the neighborhood traffic committee review traffic data for the study area and formulate ideas about how best to address traffic problems. The chapter compares our findings with the earlier survey. It identifies how policies and practices have changed as the field has matured. The chapter outlines similarities and differences across programs as they operated. A program structure has four phases: project initiation, project development, project approval, and project implementation.